I 



.itiiiiil' 



1 



[ 




THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLEKSc 



Frontispiece. 



CHARLES DICKENS'S 



STORIES 



FROM 



THE CHRISTMAS NUMBERS 



OP 



"Household Words" and "All the Year Round" 

1852-1867 



EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
BY 

CHARLES DICKENS THE YOUNGER 



MACMILLAN AND CO. 



LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1896 

All rights reserved 



^v 



^^^yK 



CopTKionT, 1896, 
By MACMILLAN AND CO. 



J. S. Gushing & Co. —Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

The Poor Relation's Story 1 

The Child's Story 10 

The Schoolboy's Story 14 

Nobody's Story 23 

The Seven Poor Travellers 28 

The Holly-Tree Inn 60 

The Wreck of the Golden Mary 79 

The Perils of Certain English Prisoners .... 119 

Going into Society 196 

The Haunted House 206 

A Message from the Sea . . . . . . . 233 

Tom Tiddler's Ground 298 

Somebody's Luggage 321 

Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings 365 

Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy 396 

Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions 421 

Mugby Junction 456 

No Thoroughfare 513 

vii 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

PAGE 
THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS .... FrOtltlSpieCe 

THE schoolboy's STORY 15 

THE HOLLY-TREE 51 

THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY' 80 

THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS .... 121 

GOING INTO SOCIETY 197 

THE HAUNTED HOUSE . . 207 

TOM tiddler's ground 299 

somebody's luggage 323 

MRS. LIRRIPER's LODGINGS 367 

MRS. LIRRIPER 397 

DOCTOR MARIGOLD 423 

MUGBY JUNCTION 457 

THE SIGNAL-MAN 601 

NO THOROUGHFARE 514 

iz 



INTRODUCTION. 

Thf stories which were published in the Christmas Num- 
bers of "HovTsehold Words" and "All the Year Round" 
have often been referred to as Christmas stories, and are 
hXcl so described on the title page of the book m whrch 
they were republished by Chapman & Hall. With the e^x- 
cention of "The Holly-Tree Inn," however their connection 
wMi Christmas was of the slightest, and that there was no 
original intention of making that connection any stronger is 
shown in the letter in which Charles Dickens invited the 
Eev James White to contribute to the first of the fries, 
"I Romid of Stories by the Christmas Fire" 'We are 
not getting onr Christmas Extra Number together," it said 
"and I think you are the boy to do, if yon will, one of the 
stories I propose to give the number some fireside name, 
aic to make it consist entirely of short stories supposed to 
be old^y a family sitting round the fire. I don't care about 
fJrre^-ring to Ghristmas at all, nor do I design to connect 
them together, otherwise than by their names. 

THs!ni the main, was the plan of all the numbers which 
followed with the exception of "The Penis of Certain 
EnS pT^oners" and "No Thoroughfare," which were 
sto?ies complete in themselves and occupying the whole of 

^^iLTh^rcSs Dickens's woi-k connected -.h 
these numbers appears in the present volume, together with 
one of Wilkie \?ollins's contribiitions which ai;e necessary 
for the complete telling of some of the s or es^ ,^^'\' orv of 
republished here Collins's chapter "^eluding the s^^^^^^^ 
" The Wreck of the Golden Mary," and the story called ihe 
Seafaring Man " in " A Message from the Sea.' Neither ot 
ftese hal been reprinted until now. The second chapter 
of "The Perils of Certain English Prisoners " does not 
appear L the English reprint of the Chnstmas Jum^^^ 
although the number has since been published complete m 
another volume. 



xii INTRODUCTION. 

That these Christmas Numbers were extremely and pro^ 
gressively popular is well known, and it may suffice to say 
here that the eighty thousand copies of "The Seven Poor 
Travellers " grew into the three hundred thousand of " No 
Thoroughfare/' with every prospect of further increase in 
the future. 

But by this time Charles Dickens was tired of the peculiar 
and exacting work which the Christmas Numbers involved, 
and took the opportunity of the commencement of a New 
Series of " All the Year Eound " to discontinue them, refer- 
ring to them in the announcement of the New Series in 
the following words : " The Extra Christmas Number has 
been so extensively, and regularly, and often imitated, that 
It IS m very great danger of becoming tiresome. I have 
therefore resolved (though I cannot add, willingly) to abolish 
iiJo *^^g.^ig^est tide of its success." This was written in 
1868. Since then the Christmas Number has increased and 
multiplied to an extent which nobody in those days would 
have thought possible. Whether quality has kept pace with 
quantity is another matter. 

CHAELES DICKENS 

THE YOUNGER. 



or 



NOTES. 

A ROUND OF STORIES BY THE CHRISTMAS FIRE. 

(The Christmas Number of "Household Wjyrds " for 1852.) 

The Poor Relation's Story. 
The Child's Story. 

TThe two stories here reprinted were Charles Dickens's contri 
bution to the " Round of Stories," which had no introduction oi 
"framework." "The Child's Story" seems to have particularly 
struck so good a judge as Mrs. Gaskell, herself the author of 
" The Nurse's Story " in the same number, for we read m a letter 
of the 17th of December, 1852, from Charles Dickens m reply to 
one of hers (which has not been preserved), " I received your kind 
note yesterday morning with the truest gratification, for 1 am the 
writer of ' The Child's Story ' as well as of ' The Poor Relation s. 
I assure you, you have given me the liveliest and heartiest pleasure 
by what you say of it."] 



ANOTHER ROUND OF STORIES BY THE CHRISTMAS 

FIRE. 

{The Christmas Number of ''Household Words" for 1853.) 

The Schoolboy's Story. 
Nobody's Story. 

riN the winter of 18.53 Charles Dickens was travelling in Italy 
with Wilkie Collins and Augustus Egg, but occupied himself even 
then in writing under all sorts of difficulties In sending "The 
Schoolboy's Story" to W. H. Wills, the sub-editor of "Household 
Words," in a letter dated " Rome, Thursday afternoon, Nov. 17th, 
1853 " he said : " The enclosed little paper for the Christmas Num- 
ber is in a character that nobody else is likely to hit and which is 
pretty sure to be considered pleasant. Let Forster have the MS. 

xiii 



xiv CHRISTMAS NUMBERS. 

with the proof, and I know he will correct it to the minutest point. 
I have a notion of another little story, also for the Christmas Num- 
ber. If I can do it at Venice, I will, and send it straight on. But 
it is not easy to work under these circumstances. In travelling we 
generally get up about three ; and in resting we are perpetually 
roaming about in all manner of places, not to mention my being- 
laid hold of by all manner of people. ... In making up the 
Christmas number, don't consider my paper or papers, Mdth any 
reference saving to where they will fall best. I have no liking, in 
the case, for any particular place."] 



THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 

{The Christmas Numhei^ of ^'Household Words "for 1854.) 

In Two Chapters. 
Chapter I. — The First Poor Traveller. 
Chapter II. — The Road. 

[This was the first of the Christmas Numbers for which Charles 
Dickens wrote a " framework," in which the stories of other con- 
tributors were set with a greater or less degree of plausibility, and 
to which he also usually added short stories of his own. It was 
in seven chapters, with " The Road " to wind up with. 

"The story of Richard Doubledick" was afterwards used for 
one of the "Readings," and proved as popular with hearers as it 
had been with readers. Writing to M. de Cerjat in January, 1855, 
Charles Dickens said of it : " The first ten pages or so — all under 
the head of ' The First Poor Traveller ' — are written by me, and 
I hope you will find, in the story of the soldier which they contain, 
something that may move you a little. It moved me not a little 
in the writing, and I believe has touched a vast number of people. 
We have sold eighty thousand of it." 

Watts's Charity still remains in Rochester, but, like the relics 
of most " pious founders," has been greatly changed, as to its scope 
and objects, during the last few years. A quaint monument to 
Watts is the most prominent object on the wall of the southwest 
transept of the Cathedral, and underneath it is now placed a brass 
thus inscribed : " Charles Dickens. Born at Portsmouth, seventh 
of February, 1812. Died at Gadshill Place, by Rochester, ninth 
of June, 1870. Buried in Westminster Abbey. To connect his 
memory with the scenes in which his earliest and his latest years 
were passed, and with the associations of Rochester Cathedral and 
its neighbourhood which extended over all his life, this Tablet, 
with the sanction of the Dean and Chapter, is placed by his 
Executors."] 



NOTES. XV 

THE HOLLY-TREE INN. 
(The Christmas Number of "Household Words" for 1855.) 

In Three Chapters. 
Chapter L — The Guest. 
Chapter IL — The Boots. 
Chapter III. — The Bill. 

[Originally in seven chapters. 

The Boots's story was used afterwards for one of the short 
Readhigs, and was always one of the most popular of the series. 

More than one attempt has been made to dramatise this httle 
story — the first was at the Adelphi by Benjamin Webster, who 
tried a sort of hash of all the stories in the number — but uni- 
formly, as might have been expected, with unsatisfactory results.] 

THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

Being the Captain's Account of the Loss of the Ship, 
AND THE Mate's Account of the Great Deliverance of 
her People in an Open Boat at Sea. 

{The Christmas Number of ''Household Words" for 1856.) 

In Two Chapters. 
Chapter L — The Wreck. 
Chapter IL — The Deliverance. 

[The original number was in three parts — " The Wreck " ; 
" The Beguilement in the Boats," which contained the stories by 
other contributors ; and " The Deliverance." 

This was the joint work of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, 
" The Wreck " having been written by the former, " The Deliver- 
ance " by the latter. " The Deliverance " was not included in the 
English reprint, and is now republished for the first time.] 



xvi CHRISTMAS NUMBERS. 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS 

And their Treasure in Women, Children, Silver, and 

Jewels. 
(.The Christinas dumber of "Household Words" for 1857.) 

In Three Chapters. 
Chapter L — The Island of Silver Store. 
Chapter IL — The Prison in the Woods. 
Chapter IIL — The Rafts on the River. 

[The first and third chapters of " The Perils of Certain English 
1 risoners " were written by Charles Dickens. The second chapter 
was the work of Wilkie Collins. These three chapters formed the 
whole ol the number, there being no additional stories by other 
writers.] . "^ 



A HOUSE TO LET. 

(The Christmas Number of "Household Words " for 1858.) 

['J A House to Let " was originally in six chapters, but only a 
small portion of the framework (if any) was written by Chailes 
iJickens, and it has consequently not been reprinted here. There- 
fore 1 have only republished a short story '* Going into Society," 
which he contributed to the general contents of the number, and 
which, under the name of "Mr. Chops, the Dwarf" became very 
popular as one of the shorter Readings.] 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

(The Chnstmas Number of "All the Year Round" for 1859.) 

In Three Chapters. 
Chapter L — The Mortals in the House. 
Chapter IL — The Ghost in Master B.'s Room. 
Chapter IH. — The Ghost in the Corner Room. 

[This, the first Christmas Number of " All the Year Round " 
was in its original form in eight chapters. ' 

Of "The Mortals in the House," Jack Governor is a slight sketch 



NOTES. xvii 

of Clarkson Stanfield, and in the name at least of Mr. Undery 
may be traced Mr. Ouvry, 'who was for many years Charles 
Dickens's "friend and solicitor." 

As is so often the case in Charles Dickens's writings there are 
several autobiographical touches in " The Ghost in Master B.'s 
Room," notably in the passage, "I was taken home, and there was 
debt in the house as well as death, and we had a sale there. My 
only little bed was so superciliously looked upon by a power 
unknown to me, hazily called The Trade, that a brass coal-scuttle, 
a roasting-jack, and a bird-cage were obliged to be put into it to* 
make a lot of it, and then it went for a soBg. So I heard men- 
tioned, and I wondered what song, and thought what a dismal 
song it must have been to sing."] 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

{Being the Christmas Number of "All the Year Round ^^ for 1860.) 

In Five Chapters. 
Chapter I. — The Village. 
Chapter II. — The Money. 
Chapter III. — The Club-Night. 
Chapter IV. — The Seafaring Man. 
Chapter V. — The Restitution. 

[In the original number "The Club-Night" contained stories 
by other writers, and was divided into five parts. 

" The Village " and " The Club-Night " were by Charles Dickens ; 
" The Money " and " The Restitution " by Charles Dickens and 
Wilkie Collins; and "The Seafaring INIan " by Wilkie Collins. 
" The Club-Night " and " The Seafaring Man " are now reprinted 
for the first time. 

Captain Jorgan was a fanciful sketch of Captain E. E. Morgan, 
in whose ship Charles Dickens came home from his first visit to 
America, and who was for many years a commander in the Grinnell 
line of sailing packets between London and New York. Charles 
Dickens wrote to him after the publication of " A Message from 
the Sea " : "I hope you will have seen the Christmas Number of 
' All the Year Round.' Here and there in the description of the 
seafaring hero, I have given a touch or two of remembi-ance of 
Somebody you know, very heartily desiring that thousands of peo- 
ple may have some faint reflection of the pleasure I have for many 
years derived from the contemplation of a most amiable nature 
and most remarkable man."] 



xviii CHRISTMAS NUMBERS. 

TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

{The Christmas Number of ''All the Year Round '* for 1861.) 

In Three Chapters. 

Chapter I. — Picking up Soot and Cinders. 
Chapter II. — Picking up Miss Kimmeens. 
Chapter III. — Picking up the Tinker. 

[Mr. Mopes had a real prototype near Stevenage, in Hertford- 
shire, and the description here of his retreat and of his personal 
appearance is little, if at all, exaggerated. 

The Christmas Xumbers were, at about this time, making their 
way to the extraordinary success which they ultimately attained. 
" The news of the Christmas Number," Charles Dickens wrote, in 
December, 1861, from Preston, where he was reading, " is indeed 
glorious, and nothing can look brighter or better than the pros- 
pects of the illustrious publication."] 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

{The Christmas Number of "All the Year Mound" for 1862.) 

In Four Chapters. 

Chapter I. — His Leaving it till called for. 
Chapter II. — His Boots. 
Chapter HI. — His Brown Paper Parcel. 
Chapter IV. — His Wonderful End. 

[Charles Dickens's own opinion of the wonderful waiter — 
surely one of his completest and most vivid character pictures — 
ran as follows: "I have been at work with such a w^ill that I 
have done the opening and conclusion of the Christmas Number. 
They are done in the character of a waiter, and I think are exceed- 
ingly droll._ The thread on which the stories are to hang, is spun 
by this waiter, and is, purposely, very slight ; but has, I fancy, a 
ridiculously comical and unexpected "end. The waiter's account 
of himself includes (I hope) everything you know about waiters, 
presented humorously."] 

The number was originally in ten chapters. 



NOTES. xix 

MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

{The Christmas Number of ''All the Year Round" for 1863.) 
In Two Chapters. 
CiiArxER I. — How Mrs. Lirriper carried on the Business. 
Chapter II. — How the Parlours added a Few Words. 

[This number originally consisted of seven chapters. Of its 
success Charles Dickens wrote : " Mrs. Lirripyer is indeed a most 
brilliant old lady. God bless her ! "] 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

{The Christmas Number of "All the Year Round "for 1864.) 

In Two Chapters. 

Chapter I. — Mrs. Lirriper relates how she went on and 
WENT over. 

Chapter II. — Mrs. Lirriper relates how Jemmy topped up. 

[Originally in seven chapters. 

That Charles Dickens sometimes thoroughly enjoyed the hu- 
mour of his own work is very well known. Writing to John 
Forster about "Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy," he said: "I can report 
that I have finished the job I set myself, and that it has in it 
something — to me at all events — so extraordinarily droll, that 
though I have been reading it some hundred times in the course 
of the writing, I have never been able to look at it with the least 
composure, but have always roared in the most unblushing man- 
ner. I leave you to find out what it was." It was the encounter 
of the Major with Mr. Buffle. 

Forster had a very high opinion of Mrs. Lirriper. " The tri- 
umph of the Christmas achievements in these days was Mrs. 
Lirriper," he says. " She took her place at once among people 
known to everybody ; and all the world talked of Major Jemmy 
Jackman and his friend, the poor elderly lodging-house keeper of 
the Strand with her miserable cares, and rivalries, and worries, as 
if they had both been as long in London and as well known as 
Norfolk-street itself. A dozen volumes could not have told more 
than those dozen pages did. The ' Legacy ' followed the ' Lodgings ' 
in 1864, and there was no falling off in the fun and laughter."] 



CHRISTMAS NUMBERS. 



DR. MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

{The Christmas Number of ''All the Year Round'' for 1865.) 
In Three Chapters. 
Chapter I. — To be taken Immediately. 
Chapter II. — To be taken with a Grain of Salt. 
Chapter III. — To be taken for Life. 

[Originally in eight chapters. 

Of the delightful Dr. Marigold, Charles Dickens wrote, in various 
letters, thus : " If people at large understand a Cheap Jack, my 
part of the Christmas Number will do well. It is wonderfully like 
the real thing; of course, a little refined and humoured." "I do 
hope that in the beginning and end of the Christmas Number you 
will find something that will strike you as being fresh, forcible, 
and full of spirits." Describing the composition of the little story, 
he wrote : " Tired with ' Our Mutual,' I sat down to cast about for 
an idea, with a depressing notion that I was, for the moment, 
overworked. Suddenly, the little character that you will see, and 
all belonging to it, came flashing up in the most cheerful manner, 
and I had only to look on and leisurely describe it." " I received 
your letter in praise of Dr. Marigold," he wrote, later, to Lord 
Lytton, " and read and re-read all your generous words fifty times 
over, with inexpressible delight. I cannot tell you how they grati- 
fied and affected me." Forster was unquestionably right in calling 
Dr. Marigold " a splendid example of his humour, pathos, and 
character." AVriting to Charles Kent, Charles Dickens said : " I 
hope and believe that the Doctor is nothing but a good 'un. He 
has perfectly astonished Forster, who writes, ' neither good, gooder, 
or goodest, but super-excellent ; all through, there is such a relish 
of you at yom' best, as I could not have believed in after a long 
story.' " The long story was " Our Mutual Friend," then recently 
finished. 

The public appreciation of " Dr. Marigold" was as great as that 
of friendly critics. The sale of the number considerably exceeded 
two hundred thousand. 

"Dr. Marigold" was as successful on the platform as elsewhere, 
and became, perhaps, the greatest favourite of all Charles Dickens's 
Readings. Its first public presentation was preceded by a "trial 
reading," of which Mr. George Dolby, in his excellent book, 
" Charles Dickens as I knew him," gives the following account : 
" The audience consisted of his family, and Mr. Robert Browning, 
Mr. Wilkie Collins, Mr. Charles Fechter, Mr. John Forster, Mr. 
Arthur Chappell, Mr. Charles Kent, and myself. It is hardly 



NOTES. xxi 

necessary to say that the verdict was unanimously favourable. 
Everybody was astonished by the extraordinary ease and fluency 
with which the patter of the Cheap Jack was delivered, and the subt- 
lety of the humour which pervaded the whole presentation." Mr. 
Dolby also mentions " the interesting fact that, although to many of 
his hearers at that eventful rehearsal of ' Dr. Marigold,' it was the 
first time it had been read, Mr. Dickens had, since its appearance 
as a Christmas Number, only three months previously, adapted it 
as a Reading, and had rehearsed it to himseK considerably over 
two hundred times." Of the effect of the Reading on the public, 
Mr. Dolby adds : '"Dr. Marigold,' as a Reading, more than realised 
the anticipations of even the most sanguine of Mr. Dickens's 
friends, whilst the public, and those who in various ways were 
more immediately interested in the Readings,'were convinced that 
up to that time they had had but a very faint conception of Mr. 
Dickens's i)owers either as an adapter or an elocutionist." 

Of the ghost story which Charles Dickens contributed to " Dr. 
Marigold's Prescriptions," he wrote to Miss Mary Boyle : " I am 
charmed to learn that you have had a freeze out of my ghost story. 
It rather did give me a shiver up the back, in the writing."] 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 

{The Christmas Numher of ''All the Year Round ''for 1866.) 

In Four Chapters. 

Chapter I. — Barbox Brothers. 
Chapter II. — Barbox Brothers and Co. 
Chapter III. — Main Line. — The Boy at Mugby. 
Chapter IV. — No. 1 Branch Line. — The Signalman. 

[Originally in eight chapters. 

" Mugby Junction," though certainly not so admirably good as 
some of its predecessors, attained the extraordinary sale of two 
hundred and fifty thousand copies in its first week. 

The ghost story was suggested by a wild chalk-pit which breaks 
the long tunnel between Higham and Strood stations, near Gadshill. 

The famous " Boy at Mugby " was taken from a real boy, and it 
was at Rugby Station that he presented himself to Charles Dickens. 
Mr. Dolby thus describes the meeting, an accident having necessi- 
tated a change of carriage at Rugby : " While I was busy superin- 
tending the transfer of the light baggage, Mr. Dickens came along 
the platform in a state of great excitement, and requested me to 
accompany him to the refreshment-room. Then, standing in the 



xxii CHRISTMAS NUMBERS. 

doorway, and pointing with his finger, he described the picture he 
particularly wished to impress on my mind, ' You see, Dolby, — 
stove to right hand — torn cocoanut matting on floor — counter 
across room — coffee-urn — tea-urn — plates of rusks — piles of saw- 
dust sandwiches and shrunken-up oranges — bottles — tumblers — 
and glasses on counter — and, behind counter, note particularly Our 
Missis.' . . . When the train was fairly off again, IMr, Dickens 
proceeded to explain. Entering the refreshment-room, he and 
Mr. Wills had each asked for a cup of coffee, which was supplied 
to them. While W^ills was feeling in his pocket for some small 
change wherewith to pay, Mr. Dickens reached across the counter 
for the sugar and milk, when both articles were suddenly snatched 
away from him and placed beneath the counter, while his ears were 
greeted with the remark, made in shrill and shrewish tones, 'You 
sha'n't have any milk and sugar till you two fellows have paid for 
your coffee.' This speech was delivered by the woman whom he 
had pointed out to me as ' Our Missis ' ; and it gave infinite amuse- 
ment to a page in buttons, who, with that demoniacal spirit which 
seems to seize some boys at the idea of somebody else ' catching 
it,' was so overjoyed that he burst out into an uncontrollable fit of 
laughter." 

" The Boy at Mugby " made a fairly successful reading, but 
" Barbox Brothers " was not so fortunate. A trial reading filled 
the minds of the author and other practical judges with misgiv- 
ings which were amply justified by the results. It became appar- 
ent on the first public Reading that Barbox did not contain the 
elements of platform popularity, and was promptly dropped out 
of the list.] 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 

{The Christmas Number of "All the Year Round" for 1867.) 

[This, the last of Charles Dickens's Christmas Numbers, was 
complete in itself. Of the five portions into which the story is 
divided, " The Overture " and " The Third Act " were written by 
Charles Dickens ; the second act was the work of Wilkie Collins ; 
and the first and fourth acts were written in collaboration by the 
two authors. 

Over three hundred thousand copies of this number were sold. 

John Forster says that "'No Thoroughfare' was transformed 
into a play for Mr. Fechter, with a view to which it had been 
planned originally," by Wilkie Collins during Charles Dickens's 
absence in America, but this is not strictly accurate. The plav 
was put together by Charles Dickens, AVilkie Collins, Fechter, and 
Benjamin Webster, the actor-manager of the Adelphi Theatre. 
When Charles Dickens went to America, he left me to look after 
his interests in the play, with instructions to attend rehearsals and 
take such steps in the way of alteration or cutting as I might think 



NOTES. xxiii 

fit, but not to interfere or produce my credentials unless, in my 
judgment, that course became absolutely necessary. As it was 
impossible to get Collins and the two actors to agree, I was 
obliged, to the general consternation, to interfere one day, and to 
cut about three-quarters of an hour out of the mountain act at one 
fell swoop. However, we all got on very well afterwards ; and the 
play was a great success, admirably acted as it was by Fechter as 
Obenreizer, Webster as Joey Ladle, George Belmore as Bintrey, 
Henry Neville as Vendale, Miss Carlotta Leclercq as Marguerite, 
and a generally efficient cast. 

My father wrote to me from America in reply to my report of 
the first night : " It was a great relief and delight to me, for I had 
no confidence in its success, being reduced to the confines of despair 
by its length. If I could have rehearsed it, I"'should have taken 
the best part of an hour out of it." I think it must have been at 
least an hour and a half that 1 got out of it !] 



STOEIES FROM CHRISTMAS NUMBEES. 



From "A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire,'' the Extra Christ- 
mas Number of ^^ Household Words," Christmas, 1852. 

THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 

He was very reluctant to take precedence of so many respected 
members of the family, by beginning the round of stories they were 
to relate as they sat in a goodly circle by the Christmas fire ; and 
he modestly suggested that it would be more correct if "John our 
esteemed host " (whose health he begged to drink) would have the 
kindness to begin. For as to himself, he said, he was so little used 

to lead the way that really But as they all cried out here, 

that he must begin, and agreed with one voice that he might, could, 
would, and should begin, he left off rubbing his hands, and took his 
legs out from under his arm-chair, and did begin. 

I have no doubt (said the poor relation) that I shall surprise the 
assembled members of our family, and particularly John our es- 
teemed host to whom we are so much indebted for the great hos- 
pitality with which he has this day entertained us, by the confession 
I am going to make. But, if you do me the honour to be surprised 
at anything that falls from a person so unimportant in the family 
as I am, I can only say that I shall be scrupulously accurate in all 
I relate. 

I am not what I am supposed to be. I am quite another thing. 
Perhaps before I go further, I had better glance at what I am sup- 
posed to be. 

It is supposed, unless I mistake — the assembled members of 
our family will correct me if I do, which is very likely (here the 
poor relation looked mildly about him for contradiction) ; that I am 
nobody's enemy but my own. That I never met with any particu- 
lar success in anything. That I failed in business because I was 
unbusiness-like and credulous — in not being prepared for the in- 
terested designs of my partner. That I failed in love, because I 

I 



2 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 

was ridiculously trustful — in thinking it impossible that Christiana 
could deceive me. That I failed in ray expectations from my Uncle 
Chill, on account of not being as sharp as he could have wished in 
worldly matters. That, through life, I have been rather put upon 
and disappointed in a general way. That I am at present a bache- 
lor of between fifty-nine and sixty years of age, living on a limited 
income in the form of a quarterly allowance, to which I see that 
John our esteemed host wishes me to make no further allusion. 

The supposition as to my present pursuits and habits is to the 
following effect. 

I live in a lodging in the Clapham Road — a very clean back 
room, in a very respectable house — where I am expected not to be 
at home in the day-time, unless poorly ; and which I usually leave 
in the morning at nine o'clock, on pretence of going to business. I 
take my breakfast — my roll and butter, and my half-pint of cof- 
fee — at the old-established coffee-shop near Westminster Bridge ; 
and then I go into the City — I don't know why — and sit in 
Garraway's Coffee House, and on 'Change, and walk about, and look 
into a few ofiices and counting-houses where some of my relations 
or acquaintance are so good as to tolerate me, and where I stand 
by the fire if the weather happens to be cold. I get through the 
day in this way until five o'clock, and then I dine : at a cost, on 
the average, of one and threepence. Having still a little money to 
spend on my evening's entertainment, I look into the old-established 
coffee-shop as I go home, and take my cup of tea, and perhaps my 
bit of toast. So, as the large hand of the clock makes its way 
round to the morning hour again, I make my way round to the 

Clapham Road again, and go to bed when I get to my lodging 

fire being expensive, and being objected to by the family on account 
of its giving trouble and making a dirt. 

Sometimes, one of my relations or acquaintances is so obliging as 
to ask me to dinner. Those are holiday occasions, and then I gen- 
erally walk in the Park. I am a solitary man, and seldom walk 
with anybody. Not that I am avoided because I am shabby ; for I am 
not at all shabby, having always a very good suit of black on (or 
rather Oxford mixture, which has the appearance of black and 
wears much better) ; but I have got into a habit of speaking low, 
and bemg rather silent, and my spirits are not high, and I am sen- 
sible that I am not an attractive companion. 

The only exception to this general rule is the child of my first 
cousm, httle Frank. I have a particular affection for that child, 
any he takes very kindly to me. He is a diffident boy by nature ; 
and m a crowd he is soon run over, as I may say, and forgotten. He 
and I, however, get on exceedingly well. I have a fancy that the 



THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 3 

poor child will in time succeed to my peculiar position in the family. 
We talk but little ; still, we understand each other. We walk about, 
hand in hand ; and without much speaking he knows what I mean, 
and I know what he means. When he was very little indeed, I 
used to take him to the windows of the toy-shops, and show him 
the toys inside. It is surprising how soon he found out that I 
would have made him a great many presents if I had been in cir- 
cumstances to do it. 

Little Frank and I go and look at the outside of the Monument 
— he is very fond of the Monument — and at the Bridges, and at 
all the sights that are free. On two of my birthdays, we have dined 
on k-la-mode beef, and gone at half-price to J:he play, and been 
deeply interested. I was once walking with him in Lombard 
Street, which we often visit on account of my having mentioned to 
him that there are great riches there — he is very fond of Lombard 
Street — when a gentleman said to me as he j^assed by, " Sir, your 
little son has dropped his glove." I assure you, if you will excuse 
my remarking on so trivial a circumstance, this accidental mention 
of the child as mine, quite touched my heart and brought the fool- 
ish tears into my eyes. 

When little Frank is sent to school in the country, I shall be 
very much at a loss what to do with myself, but I have the intention 
of walking down there once a month and seeing him on a half holi- 
day. I am told he will then be at play upon the Heath ; and if 
my visits should be objected to, as unsettling the child, I can see 
him from a distance without his seeing me, and walk back again. 
His mother comes of a highly genteel family, and rather disapproves, 
I am aware, of our being too much together. I know that I am 
not calculated to improve his retiring disposition ; but I think he 
would miss me beyond the feeling of the moment if we were wholly 
sejDarated. 

When I die in the Clapham Road, I shall not leave much more 
in this world than I shall take out of it ; but, I happen to have a 
miniature of a bright-faced boy, with a curling head, and an open 
shirt-frill waving down his bosom (my mother had it taken for me, 
but I can't believe that it was ever like), which will be w^orth noth- 
ing to sell, and which I shall beg may be given to Frank. I have 
written my dear boy a little letter with it, in which I have told 
him that I felt very sorry to part from him, though bound to con- 
fess that I knew no reason why I should remain here. I have 
given him some short advice, the best in my power, to take warn- 
ing of the consequences of being nobody's enemy but his own ; and 
I have endeavoured to comfort him for what I ifear he will consider 
a bereavement, by pointing out to him, that I was only a superfluous 



4 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 

something to every one but him ; and that having by some means 
failed to find a place in this great assembly, I am better out of it. 
Such (said the poor relation, clearing his throat and beginning 
to speak a little louder) is the general impression about me. Now, 
it is a remarkable circumstance which forms the aim and purpose 
of my story, tha,t this is all wrong. This is not my life, and these 
are not my habits. I do not even live in the Clapham Road. Com- 
paratively speaking, I am very seldom there. I reside, mostly, in 
a — I am almost ashamed to say the word, it sounds so full of pre- 
tension—in a Castle. I do not mean that it is an old baronial 
habitation, but still it is a building always known to every one by 
the name of a Castle. In it, I preserve the particulars of my his- 
tory ; they run thus : 

It was when I first took John Spatter (who had been my clerk) 
into partnership, and when I was still a young man of not more than 
five-and-twenty, residing in the house of my Uncle Chill, from whom 
I had considerable expectations, that I ventured to propose to Chris- 
tiana. I had loved Christiana a long time. She was very beauti- 
ful, and very winning in all respects. I rather mistrusted her 
widowed mother, who I feared was of a plotting and mercenary turn 
of mmd ; but, I thought as well of her as I could, for Christiana's 
sake. I never had loved any one but Christiana, and she had been 
all the world, and far more than all the world, to me, from our 
childhood ! 

Christiana accepted me with her mother's consent, and I was 
rendered very happy indeed. My life at my Uncle ChiU's was of 
a spare dull kmd, and my garret chamber was as dull, and bare 
and cold, as an upper prison room in some stern northern fortress 
i^ut havmg Christiana's love, I wanted nothing upon earth f 
would not have changed my lot with any human being 

Avarice was, unhappily, my Uncle Chill's master-vice. Though 
he was rich he pinched, and scraped, and clutched, and lived miser- 
ably As Christiana had no fortune, I was for some time a little 
tearful of confessing our engagement to him; but, at length I wrote 
him a letter, saying how it all truly was. I put it into his hand 
one night, on going to bed. 

As I came down-stairs next morning, shivering in the cold 
I3ecember air ; colder in my uncle's unwarmed house than in the 
street, where the winter sun did sometimes shine, and which was 
at all events enhvened by cheerful faces and voices passing along : 
I carried a heavy heart towards the long, low breakfast-room in 
which my uncle sat. It was a large room mth a small fire, and 
there was a great bay window in it which the rain had marked in 
the night as if with the tears of houseless people. It stared upon 



THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 5 

a raw yard, with a cracked stone pavement, and some rusted iron 
railings half ui^rooted, whence an ugly out-building that had once 
been a dissecting-room (in the time of the great surgeon who had 
mortgaged the house to my uncle), stared at it. 

We rose so early always, that at that time of the year we break- 
fasted by candle-light. When I went into the room, my uncle was 
so contracted by the cold, and so huddled together in his chair be- 
hind the one dim candle, that I did not see him until I was close 
to the table. 

As I held out my hand to him, he caught up his stick (being 
infirm, he always walked about the house with a stick), and made 
a blow at me, and said, " You fool ! " 

" Uncle," I returned, " I didn't expect you to be so angry as this." 
Nor had I expected it, though he was a hard and angry old man. 

"You didn't expect!" said he; "when did you ever expect? 
When did you ever calculate, or look forward, you contemptible 
dog?" 

" These are hard words, uncle ! " 

"Hard words? Feathers, to pelt such an idiot as you with," 
said he. " Here ! Betsy Snap ! Look at him ! " 

Betsy Snap was a withered, hard-favoured, yellow old woman 
— our only domestic — always employed, at this time of the morn- 
ing, in rubbing my uncle's legs. As my uncle adjured her to look 
at me, he put his lean grip on the crown of her head, she kneeling 
beside him, and turned her face towards me. An involuntary 
thought connecting them both with the dissecting-room, as it 
must often have been in the surgeon's time, passed across my mind 
in the midst of my anxiety. 

" Look at the snivelling milksop ! " said my uncle. " Look at 
the baby ! This is the gentleman who, people say, is nobody's 
enemy but his own. This is the gentleman who can't say no. 
This is the gentleman who was making such large profits in his 
business that he must needs take a partner, t'other day. This is 
the gentleman who is going to marry a wife without a penny, and 
who falls into the hands of Jezebels who are speculating on my 
death ! " 

I knew, now, how great my uncle's rage was ; for nothing short 
of his being almost beside himself would have induced him to utter 
that concluding word, which he held in such repugnance that it was 
never spoken or hinted at before him on any account. 

" On my death," he repeated, as if he were defying me by defying 
his own abhorrence of the word. " On my death — death — Death ! 
But I'll spoil the speculation. Eat your last under this roof, you 
feeble wretch, and may it choke you ! " 



6 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 

You may suppose that I had not much appetite for the break- 
fast to which I was bidden in these terms ; but, I took my accus- 
tomed seat. I saw that I was repudiated henceforth by my 
uncle; still I could bear that very well, possessing Christiana's 
heart. 

He emptied his basin of bread and milk as usual, only that he 
took it on his knees with his chair turned away from the table 
where I sat. When he had done, he carefully snufted out the 
candle ; and the cold, slate-coloured, miserable day looked in upon 
us. 

"Now, Mr. Michael," said he, " before we part, I should like to 
have a word with these ladies in your presence." 

"As you will, sir," I returned ; "but you deceive yourself, and 
wrong us, cruelly, if you suppose that there is any feeling at stake 
in this contract but pure, disinterested, faithful love." 

To this, he only replied, " You lie ! " and not one other word. 

"We went, through half-thawed snow and half-frozen rain, to the 
house where Christiana and her mother lived. My uncle knew 
them very well. They were sitting at tlieir breakfast, and were 
surprised to see us at that hour. 

"Your servant, ma'am," said my uncle to the mother. "You 
divine the purpose of my visit, I dare say, ma'am. I understand 
there is a world of pure, disinterested, faithful love cooped up here. 
I am happy to bring it all it wants, to make it complete. I bring 
you your son-in-law, ma'am — and you your husband, miss. The 
gentleman is a perfect stranger to me, but I wish him joy of his 
wise bargain." 

He snarled at me as he went out, and I never saw him again. 

It is altogether a mistake (continued the poor relation) to sup- 
pose that my dear Christiana, over-persuaded and influenced by her 
mother, married a rich man, the dirt from whose carriage wheels 
is often, in these changed times, thrown upon me as she rides by. 
No, no. She married me. 

The way we came to be married rather sooner than we intended, 
was this. I took a frugal lodging and was saving and planning 
for her sake, when, one day, she spoke to me with great earnest- 
ness, and said : 

" My dear Michael, I have given you my heart. I have said 
that I loved you, and I have pledged myself to be your wife. I 
am as much yours through all changes of good and evil as if we 
had been married on the day when such words passed between us. 
I know you well, and know that if we should be separated and our 
union broken off, your whole life would be shadowed, and all that 



THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 7 

might, even now, be stronger in your character for the conflict with 
the world would then be weakened to the shadow of what it is ! " 
"God help me, Christiana!" said I. "You speak the truth." 
" Michael ! " said she, putting her hand in mine, in all maidenly- 
devotion, " let us keep apart no longer. It is but for me to say- 
that I can live contented upon such means as you have, and I well 
know you are happy. I say so from my heart. Strive no more 
alone ; let us strive together. My dear Michael, it is not right 
that I should keep secret from you what you do not suspect, but 
what distresses my whole life. My mother : w^ithout considering 
that what you have lost, you have lost for me, and on the assur- 
ance of my faith : sets her heart on riches, an^l urges another suit 
upon me, to my misery. I cannot bear this, for to bear it is to be 
untrue to you. I would rather share your struggles than look on. 
I want no better home than you can give me.- I know that you 
will aspire and labour with a higher courage if I am wholly yours, 
and let it be so when you will ! " 

I was blest indeed, that day, and a new world opened to me. 
We were married in a very little while, and I took my wife to our 
happy home. That was the beginning of the residence I have 
spoken of; the Castle we have ever since inhabited together, dates 
from that time. All our children have been born in it. Our first 
child — now married — was a little girl, whom we called Christiana. 
Her son is so like little Frank, that I hardly know which is which. 

The current impression as to my partner's dealings with me is 
also quite erroneous. He did not begin to treat me coldly, as a 
poor simpleton, when my uncle and I so fatally quarrelled ; nor 
did he afterwards gradually possess himself of our business and 
edge me out. On the contrary, he behaved to me with the utmost 
good faith and honour. 

Matters between us took this turn : — On the day of my separa- 
tion from my uncle, and even before the arrival at our counting- 
house of my trunks (which he sent after me, not carriage paid), 
I went down to our room of business, on our little wharf, over- 
looking the river; and there I told John Spatter what had happened. 
John did not say, in reply, that rich old relatives were palpable 
facts, and that love and sentiment were moonshine and fiction. 
He addressed me thus : 

"Michael," said John, "we were at school together, and I gen- 
erally had the knack of getting on better than you, and making a 
higher reputation." 

"You had, John," I returned. 

"Although," said John, "I borrowed your books and lost them; 



8 THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 

borrowed your pocket-money, and never repaid it ; got you to buy 
my damaged knives at a higher price than I had given for them 
new; and to own to the windows that I had broken." 

"All not worth mentioning, John Spatter," said I, "but cer- 
tainly true." 

" When you w^ere first established in this infant business, which 
promises to thrive so well," pursued John, "I came to you, in my 
search for almost any employment, and you made me your clerk." 

" Still not worth mentioning, my dear John Spatter," said I ; 
"still, equally true." 

" And finding that I had a good head for business, and that I 
was really useful to the business, you did not like to retain me in 
that capacity, and thought it an act of justice soon to make me 
your partner." 

" Still less worth mentioning than any of those other little cir- 
cumstances you have recalled, John Spatter," said I ; " for I was, 
and am, sensible of your merits and my deficiencies." 

" Now, my good friend," said John, drawing my arm through 
his, as he had had a habit of doing at school ; while two vessels out- 
side the windows of our counting-house — which were shaped like 
the stern windows of a ship — went lightly down the river with 
the tide, as John and I might then be sailing away in company, 
and in trust and confidence, on ^ our voyage of life; "let there, 
under these friendly circumstances, be a right understanding be- 
tween us. You are too easy, Michael. You are nobody's enemy 
but your own. If I were to give you that damaging character 
among our connection, with a shrug, and a shake of the head, and 
a sigh ; and if I were further to abuse the trust you place in 
me " 

"But you never will abuse it at all, John," I observed. 

" Never ! " said he ; " but I am putting a case — I say, and if I 
v>^ere further to abuse that trust by keeping this piece of our com- 
mon affairs in the dark, and this other piece in the light, and again 
this other piece in the twilight, and so on, I should strengthen my 
strength, and weaken your weakness, day by day, until at last I 
found myself on the high road to fortune, and you left beliind on 
some bare common, a hopeless number of miles out of the way." 

"Exactly so," said I. 

" To prevent this, Michael," said John Spatter, "or the remotest 
chance of this, there must be perfect openness between us. Noth- 
ing must be concealed, and we must have but one interest." 

" My dear John Spatter," I assured him, " that is precisely what 
I mean." 

"And when you are too easy," pursued John, his face glowing 



THE POOR RELATION'S STORY. 9 

with friendship, "you must allow me to prevent that imperfection 
in your nature from being taken advantage of, by any one ; you 
must not expect me to humour it " 

"My dear John Spatter," I interrupted, " I donH expect you to 
humour it. I want to correct it." 

"And I, too," said John. 

" Exactly so ! " cried I. " We both have the same end in view ; 
and, honourably seeking it, and fully trusting one another, and having 
but one interest, ours will be a prosperous and happy partnership." 

" I am sure of it ! " returned John Spatter. And we shook 
hands most affectionately. 

I took John home to my Castle, and we had a very happy day. 
Our partnership throve well. My friend and partner supplied what 
I wanted, as I had foreseen that he would ; and by improving both 
the business and myself, amply acknowledged any little rise in life 
to which I had helped him. 

I am not (said the poor relation, looking at the fire as he slowly 
rubbed his hands) very rich, for I never cared to be that ; but I 
have enough, and am above all moderate wants and anxieties. 
My Castle is not a splendid place, but it is very comfortable, and 
it has a warm and cheerful air, and is quite a picture of Home. 

Our eldest girl, who is very like her mother, married John Spat- 
ter's eldest son. Our two families are closely united in other ties 
of attachment. It is very pleasant of an evening, when we are 
all assembled together — which frequently happens — and when 
John and I talk over old times, and the one interest there has 
always been between us. 

I really do not know, in my Castle, what loneliness is. Some 
of our children or grandchildren are always about it, and the young 
voices of my descendants are delightful — 0, how dehghtful ! — 
to me to hear. My dearest and most devoted wife, ever faithful, 
ever loving, ever helpful and sustaining and consoling, is the price- 
less blessing of my house; from whom all its other blessings 
spring. We are rather a musical family, and when Christiana 
sees me, at any time, a little weary or depressed, she steals to the 
piano and sings a gentle air she used to sing when we were first 
betrothed. So weak a man am I, that I cannot bear to hear it 
from any other source. They played it once, at the Theatre, when 
I was there with little Frank; and the child said wondering, 
" Cousin Michael, whose hot tears are these that have fallen on 
my hand ! " 

Such is ray Castle, and such are the real particulars of my life 
therein preserved. I often take little Frank home there. He is 



10 THE CHILD'S STORY. 

very welcome to my grandchildren, and they play together. At 
this time of the year — the Christmas and New Year time — I am 
seldom out of iny Castle. For, the associations of the season seem 
to hold me there, and the precepts of the season seem to teach me 
that it is well to be there. 

" And the Castle is " observed a grave, kind voice among 

the company. 

" Yes. My Castle," said the poor relation, shaking his head as 
he still looked at the fire, "is in the Air. John our esteemed 
host suggests its situation accurately. My Castle is in the Air ! 
I have done. Will you be so good as to pass the story." 



From "A Round of St07nes by the Christmas Fire," being the Extra 
Christmas Number of "Household Words "for Christmas, 1852. 

THE CHILD'S STORY. 

Once upon a time, a good many years ago, there was a traveller, 
and he set out upon a journey. It w^as a magic journey, and was 
to seem very long wiien he began it, and very short when he got 
half way through. 

He travelled along a rather dark path for some little time, with- 
out meeting anything, until at last he came to a beautiful child. 
So he said to the child, " What do you do here ? " And the child 
said, " I am always at play. Come and play with me ! " 

So, he played with that child, the whole day long, and they 
were very merry. The sky was so blue, the sun was so bright, 
the water was so sparkling, the leaves were so green, the flowers 
were so lovely, and they heard such singing-birds and saw so many 
butterflies, that everything was beautiful. This was in fine 
weather. When it rained, they loved to watch the falling drops, 
and to smell the fresh scents. When it blew, it w^as delightful to 
listen to the wind, and fancy what it said, as it came rushing from 
its home — where was that, they wondered ! — ■ whistling and howl- 
ing, driving the clouds before it, bending the trees, rumbling in the 
chimneys, shaking the house, and making the sea roar in fiiry. 
But, when it snowed, that was best of all ; for, they liked nothing 
so well as to look up at the white flakes falling fast and thick, like 
down from the breasts of millions of white birds ; and to see how 
smooth and deep the drift was ; and to listen to the hush upon the 
paths and roads. 



THE CHILD'S STORY. 11 

They had plenty of the finest toys in the world, and the most 
astonishing picture-books : all about scimitars and slippers and 
turbans, and dwarfs and giants and genii and fairies, and Blue- 
beards and bean-stalks and riches and caverns and forests and Val- 
entines and Orsons : and all new and all true. 

But, one day, of a sudden, the traveller lost the child. He called 
to him over and over again, but got no answer. So, he went upon 
his road, and went on for a little while without meeting anything, 
until at last he came to a handsome boy. So, he said to the boy, 
" What do you do here 1 " And the boy said, " I am always learn- 
ing. Come and learn with me." 

So he learned with that boy about Jupiter^and Juno, and the 
Greeks and the Romans, and I don't know what, and learned more 
than I could tell — or he either, for he soon forgot a great deal of 
it. But, they were not always learning ; they had the merriest 
games that ever were played. They rowed upon the river in sum- 
mer, and skated on the ice in winter ; they were active afoot, and 
active on horseback ; at cricket, and all games at ball ; at prison- 
ers' base, hare and hounds, follow my leader, and more sports than 
I can think of; nobody could beat them. They had holidays too, 
and Twelfth cakes, and parties where they danced till midnight, 
and real Theatres where they saw palaces of real gold and silver 
rise out of the real earth, and saw all the wonders of the world at 
once. As to friends, they had such dear friends and so many of 
them, that I want the time to reckon them up. They were all 
young, like the handsome boy, and were never to be strange to one 
another all their lives through. 

Still, one day, in the midst of all these pleasures, the traveller 
lost the boy as he had lost the child, and, after calling to him in 
vain, went on upon his journey. So he went on for a little while 
^vithout seeing anything, until at last he came to a young man. 
So, he said to the young man, " What do you do here ? " And the 
young man said, "I am always in love. Come and love with me." 

So, he went away with that young man, and presently they came 
to one of the prettiest girls that ever was seen — just like Fanny in 
the corner there — and she had eyes like Fanny, and hair like Fanny, 
and dimples like Fanny's, and she laughed and coloured just as 
Fanny does while I am talking about her. So, the young man 
fell in love directly — just as Somebody I won't mention, the first 
time he came here, did with Fanny. Well ! he was teased some- 
times — just as Somebody used to be by Fanny; and they quar- 
relled sometimes — just as Somebody and Fanny used to quarrel; 
and they made it up, and sat in the dark, and wrote letters every 
day, and never were happy asunder, and were always looking out for 



12 THE CHILD'S STORY. 

one another and pretending not to, and were engaged at Christmas 
time, and sat close to one another by the fire, and were going to be 
married very soon — all exactly like Somebody I won't mention, 
and Fanny ! 

But, the traveller lost them one day, as he had lost the rest of 
his friends, and, after calling to them to come back, which they 
never did, went on upon his journey. So, he went on for a little 
while without seeing anything, until at last he came to a middle- 
aged gentleman. So, he said to the gentleman, " What are you 
doing here 1 " And his answer was, " I am always busy. Come 
and be busy with me ! " 

So, he began to be very busy with that gentleman, and they went 
on through the wood together. The whole journey was through 
a wood, only it had been open and green at first, like a wood 
in spring ; and now began to be thick and dark, like a wood in 
summer ; some of the little trees that had come out earliest, were 
even turning brown. The gentleman was not alone, but had a 
lady of about the same age with him, who was his Wife ; and they 
had children, who were with them too. So, they all went on to- 
gether through the wood, cutting down the trees, and making a 
path through the branches and the fallen leaves, and carrying bur- 
dens, and working hard. 

Sometimes, they came to a long green avenue that opened into 
deeper woods. Then they would hear a very little distant voice cry- 
ing, " Father, father, I am another child ! Stop for me ! " And 
presently they would see a very little figure, growing larger as it 
came along, running to join them. When it came up, they all 
crowded round it, and kissed and welcomed it ; and then they all 
went on together. 

Sometimes, they came to several avenues at once, and then they 
all stood still, and one of the children said, " Father, I am going 
to sea," and another said, " Father, I am going to India," and 
another, " Father, I am going to seek my fortune where I can," 
and another, " Father, I am going to Heaven ! " So, with many 
tears at parting, they went, solitary, down those avenues, each child 
upon its way ; and the child who went to Heaven, rose into the 
golden air and vanished. 

Whenever these partings happened, the traveller looked at the 
gentleman, and saw him glance up at the sky above the trees, 
where the day was beginning to decline, and the sunset to come on. 
He saw, too, that his hair was turning grey. But, they never 
could rest long, for they had their journey to perform, and it was 
necessary for them to be always busy. 

At last, there had been so many partings that there were no 



THE CHILD'S STORY. 13 

children left, and only the traveller, the gentleman, and the lady, 
went upon their way in company. And now the wood was yellow ; 
and now brown ; and the leaves, even of the forest trees, began to 
fall. 

So, they came to an avenue that was darker than the rest, and 
were pressing forward on their journey without looking down it 
when the lady stopped. 

" My husband," said the lady. "I am called." 

They listened, and they heard a voice a long way down the 
avenue, say, "Mother, mother ! " 

It was the voice of the first child who had said, " I am going to 
Heaven!" and the father said, "I pray not 'yet. The sunset is 
very near. I pray not yet ! " 

But, the voice cried, " Mother, mother ! " without minding him, 
though his hair was now quite white, and tears were on his face. 

Then, the mother, who was already drawn into the shade of the 
dark avenue and moving away with her arms still round his neck, 
kissed him, and said, " My dearest, I am summoned, and I go ! " 
And she was gone. And the traveller and he were left alone 
together. 

And they went on and on together, until they came to very near 
the end of the wood : so near, that they could see the sunset 
shining red before them through the trees. 

Yet, once more, while he broke his way among the branches, 
the traveller lost his friend. He called and called, but there 
was no reply, and when he passed out of the wood, and saw the 
peaceful sun going down upon a wide purple prospect, he came to 
an old man sitting on a fallen tree. So, he said to the old man, 
" What do you do here 1 " And' the old man said with a calm 
smile, "I am always remembering. Come and remember with 
me!" 

So the traveller sat down by the side of that old man, face to 
face with the serene sunset ; and all his friends came softly back 
and stood around him. The beautiful child, the handsome boy, the 
young man in love, the father, mother, and children : every one of 
them was there, and he had lost nothing. So, he loved them all, 
and was kind and forbearing with them all, and was always 
pleased to watch them all, and they all honoured and loved him. 
And I think the traveller must be yourself, dear Grandfather, be- 
cause this is what you do to us, and what we do to you. 



14 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 

From ^'Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire," being the 
Extra Christmas Number of ^^ Household Words "for Christmas, 1853. 

THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 

Being rather young at present — I am getting on in years, but 
still I am rather young— I have no particular adventures of my 
own to fall back upon. It wouldn't much interest anybody here, 
I suppose, to know what a screw the Reverend is, or what a griffin 
she is, or how they do stick it into parents — particularly hair- 
cutting, and medical attendance. One of our fellows was charged 
in his half's account twelve and sixpence for two pills — tolerably 
profitable at six and threepence apiece, I should think — and he 
never took them either, but put them up the sleeve of his jacket. ^ 

As to the beef, it's shameful. It's not beef. Regular beef isn't 
veins. You can chew regular beef. Besides which, there's gravy 
to regular beef, and you never see a drop to ours. Another of 
our fellows went home ill, and heard the family doctor tell his 
father that he couldn't account for his complaint unless it was the 
beer. Of course it was the beer, and well it might be ! 

However, beef and Old Cheeseman are two different things. 
S3* is beer. It was Old Cheeseman I meant to tell about; not 
the manner in which our fellows get their constitutions destroyed 
for the sake of profit. 

Why, look at the pie-crust alone. There's no flakiness in it. 
It's solid — like damp lead. Then our fellows get nightm.ares, and 
are bolstered for calling out and waking other fellows. Who can 
wonder ! 

Old Cheeseman one night walked in his sleep, put his hat on 
over his night-cap, got hold of a fishing-rod and a cricket-bat, and 
went down into the parlour, where they naturally thought from his 
appearance he was a Ghost. Why, he never would have done 
that if his meals had been wholesome. When we all begin to 
walk in our sleeps, I suppose they'll be sorry for it. 

Old Cheeseman wasn't second Latin Master then ; he was a fel- 
low himself. He was first brought there, very small, in a post- 
chaise, by a woman who was always taking snuflF and shaking him 
— and that was the most he remembered about it. He never went 
home for the holidays. His accounts (he never learnt any extras) 
were sent to a Bank, and the Bank paid them ; and he had a brown 
suit twice a year, and went into boots at twelve. They were 
always too big for him, too. 

In the Midsummer holidays, some of our fellows who lived 




THE SCHOOLBOY'S STOKY. 



16 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 

within walking distance, used to come back and climb the trees 
outside the playground wall, on purpose to look at Old Cheeseman 
reading there by himself. He was always as mild as the tea — 
and that's pretty mild, I should hope ! — so when they whistled to 
him, he looked up and nodded ; and when they said, " Halloa, Old 
Cheeseman, what have you had for dinner ? " he said, " Boiled mut- 
ton;" and when they said "An't it solitary. Old Cheeseman?" 
he said, " It is a little dull sometimes : " and then they said, " Well, 
good-bye. Old Cheeseman ! " and climbed down again. Of course 
it was imposing on Old Cheeseman to give him nothing but boiled 
mutton through a whole Vacation, but that was just like the sys- 
tem. When they didn't give him boiled mutton, they gave him 
rice pudding, pretending it was a treat. And saved the butcher. 

So Old Cheeseman went on. The holidays brought him into 
other trouble besides the loneliness ; because when the fellows 
began to come back, not wanting to, he was always glad to see 
them ; which was aggravating when they were not at all glad to 
see him, and so he got his head knocked against walls, and that 
was the way his nose bled. But he was a favourite in general. 
Once a subscription was raised for him ; and, to keep up his spirits, 
he was presented before the holidays with two white mice, a rabbit, 
a pigeon, and a beautiful puppy. Old Cheeseman cried about it 

— especially soon afterwards, when they all ate one another. 

Of course Old Cheeseman used to be called by the names of 
all sorts of cheeeses — Double Glo'sterman, Family Cheshireman, 
Dutchman, North Wiltshireman, and all that. But he never 
minded it. And I don't mean to say he was old in point of years 

— because he wasn't — only he was called from the first. Old 
Cheeseman. 

At last, Old Cheeseman was made second Latin Master. He 
was brought in one morning at the beginning of a new half, and 
presented to the school in that capacity as "Mr. Cheeseman." 
Then our fellows all agreed that Old Cheeseman was a spy, and a 
deserter, who had gone over to the enemy's camp, and sold him- 
self for gold. It was no excuse for him that he had sold himself 
for very little gold — two pound ten a quarter and his washing, as 
was reported. It was decided by a Parliament which sat about it, 
that Old Cheeseman's mercenary motives could alone be taken into 
account, and that he had " coined our blood for drachmas." The 
Parliament took the expression out of the quarrel scene between 
Brutus and Cassius. 

When it was settled in this strong way that Old Cheeseman was 
a tremendous traitor, who had wormed himself into our fellows' 
secrets on purpose to get himself into favour by giving up every- 



THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 17 

thing he knew, all courageous fellows were invited to come forward 
and enroll themselves in a Society for making a set against him. 
The President of the Society was first boy, named Bob Tarter. 
His father was in the West Indies, and he owned, himself, that his 
father was worth Millions. He had great power among our fel- 
lows, and he wrote a parody, beginning, 

" Who made believe to be so meek 
That we could hardly hear him speak, 
Yet turned out an Informing Sneak ? 

Old Cheeseman." 

— and on in that way through more than a d®zen verses, which he 
used to go and sing, every morning, close by the new master's desk. 
He trained one of the low boys, too, a rosy-cheeked little Brass who 
didn't care what he did, to go up to him with his Latin Grammar 
one morning, and say it so : ISfominativus 2^'^onominum — Old 
Cheeseman, raro exiwimitur — was never suspected, nid distinc- 
tionis — of being an informer, aut emphasis gratia — until he 
proved one. Ut — for instance, Vos damiiastis — when he sold 
the boys. Quasi — as though, dicat — he should say, Preta^rea 
nemo — I'm a Judas ! All this produced a great effect on Old 
Cheeseman. He had never had much hair ; but what he had, began 
to get thinner and thinner every day. He grew paler and more 
worn ; and sometimes of an evening he was seen sitting at his desk 
with a precious long snuff to his candle, and his hands before his 
face, crying. But no member of the Society could pity him, even 
if he felt inclined, because the President said it was Old Cheese- 
man's conscience. 

So Old Cheeseman went on, and didn't he lead a miserable life ! 
Of course the Reverend turned up his nose at him, and of course 
she did — because both of them always do that at all the masters 

— but he suffered from the fellows most, and he suffered from them 
constantly. He never told about it, that the Society could find 
out ; but he got no credit for that, because the President said it 
was Old Cheeseman's cowardice. 

He had only one friend in the world, and that one was almost as 
powerless as he was, for it was only Jane. Jane was a sort of 
wardrobe woman to our fellows, and took care of the boxes. She 
had come at first, I believe, as a kind of apprentice — some of our 
fellows say from a Charity, but / don't know — and after her time 
was out, had stopped at so much a year. So little a year, perhaps 
I ought to say, for it is far more likely. However, she had put 
some pounds in the Savings' Bank, and she was a very nice young 
woman. She was not quite pretty; but she had a very frank, 



18 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 

honest, bright face, and all our fellows were fond of her. She was 
uncommonly neat and cheerful, and uncommonly comfortable and 
kind. And if anything was the matter with a fellow's mother, he 
always went and showed the letter to Jane. 

Jane was Old Cheeseman's friend. The more the Society went 
against him, the more Jane stood by him. She used to give him 
a good-humoured look out of her still-room window, sometimes, that 
seemed to set him up for the day. She used to pass out of the 
orchard and the kitchen garden (always kept locked, I believe you !) 
through the play-ground, when she might have gone the other way, 
only to give a turn of her head, as much as to say " Keep up your 
spirits ! " to Old Cheeseman. His slip of a room was so fresh and 
orderly that it was well known who looked after it while he was 
at his desk ; and when our fellows saw a smoking hot dumpling on 
his plate at dinner, they knew with indignation who had sent it up. 

Under these circumstances, the Society resolved, after a quantity 
of meeting and debating, that Jane should be requested to cut Old 
Cheeseman dead; and that if she refused, she must be sent to 
Coventry herself So a deputation, headed by the President, was 
appointed to wait on Jane, and inform her of the vote the Society 
had been under the painful necessity of passing. She was very 
much respected for all her good qualities, and there was a story 
about her having once waylaid the Reverend in his own study, and 
got a fellow off from severe punishment, of her own kind comfort- 
able heart. So the deputation didn't much like the job. However, 
they went up, and the President told Jane all about it. Upon 
which Jane turned very red, burst into tears, informed the Presi- 
dent and the deputation, in a way not at all like her usual way, that 
they were a parcel of malicious young savages, and turned the whole 
respected body out of the room. Consequently it was entered in 
the Society's book (kept in astronomical cypher for fear of detec- 
tion), that all communication with Jane was interdicted : and the 
President addressed the members on this convincing instance of 
Old Cheeseman's undermining. 

But Jane was as true to Old Cheeseman as Old Cheeseman was 
false to our fellows — in their opinion, at all events — and steadily 
continued to be his only friend. It was a great exasperation to the 
Society, because Jane was as much a loss to them as she was a 
gain to him; and being more inveterate against him than ever, 
they treated him worse than ever. At last, one morning, his desk 
stood empty, his room was peeped into, and found to be vacant, 
and a whisper went about among the pale faces of our fellows that 
Old Cheeseman, unable to bear it any longer, had got up early and 
drowned himself. 



THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 19 

The mysterious looks of the other masters after breakfast, and 
the evident fact that Old Cheeseman was not expected, confirmed 
the Society in this opinion. Some began to discuss whether the 
President was liable to hanging or only transportation for life, and 
the President's face showed a great anxiety to know which. How- 
ever, he said that a jury of his country should find him game ; and 
that in his address he should put it to them to lay their hands 
upon their hearts and say whether they as Britons approved of in- 
formers, and how they thought they would like it themselves. 
Some of the Society considered that he had better run away until 
he found a forest where he might change clothes with a wood- 
cutter, and stain his face with blackberries^; but the majority 
beheved that if he stood his ground, his father — belonging as 
he did to the West Indies, and being worth Millions — could buy 
him off". 

All our fellows' hearts beat fast when the Reverend came in, 
and made a sort of a Roman, or a Field Marshal, of himself with 
the ruler; as he always did before delivering an address. But 
their fears were nothing to their astonishment when he came out 
with the story that Old Cheeseman, " so long our respected friend and 
fellow-pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowledge," he called him 

— yes ! I dare say ! Much of that ! — was the orphan child of 
a disinherited young lady who had married against her father's 
wish, and whose young husband had died, and who liad died of sor- 
row herself, and whose unfortunate baby (Old Cheeseman) had been 
brought up at the cost of a grandfather who would never consent 
to see it, baby, boy, or man : which grandfather was now dead, 
and serve him right — that's my putting in — and which grand- 
father's large property, there being no will, was now, and all of a 
sudden and for ever. Old Cheeseman's ! Our so long respected 
friend and fellow-pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowledge, the 
Reverend wound up a lot of bothering quotations by saying, 
would "come among us once more" that day fortnight, when he 
desired to take leave of us himself, in a more particular manner. 
With these words, he stared severely round at our fellows, and 
went solemnly out. 

There was precious consternation among the members of the 
Society, now. Lots of them wanted to resign, and lots more began 
to try to make out that they had never belonged to it. However, 
the President stuck up, and said that they must stand or fall 
together, and that if a breach was made it should be over his body 

— which was meant to encourage the Society : but it didn't. 
The President further said, he would consider the position in which 
they stood, and would give them his best opinion and advice in a 



20 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 

few days. This was eagerly looked for, as he knew a good deal of 
the world on account of his father's being in the West Indies. 

After days and days of hard thinking, and drawing armies all 
over his slate, the President called our fellows together, and made 
the matter clear. He said it was plain that when Old Cheeseman 
came on the appointed day, his first revenge would be to impeach 
the Society, and have it flogged all round. After witnessing with 
joy the torture of his enemies, and gloating over the cries which 
agony would extort from them, the probability was that he would 
invite the Reverend, on pretence of conversation, into a private 
room — say the parlour into which Parents were shown, where the 
two great globes were which were never used — and would there 
reproach him with the various frauds and oppressions he had en- 
dured at his hands. At the close of his observations he would 
make a signal to a Prizefighter concealed in the passage, who would 
then appear and pitch into the Reverend, till he was left insensible. 
Old Cheeseman would then make Jane a present of from five to 
ten pounds, and would leave the establishment in fiendish triumph. 

The President explained that against the parlour part, or the 
Jane part, of these arrangements he had nothing to say ; but, on 
the part of the Society, he counselled deadly resistance. With 
this view he recommended that all available desks should be filled 
with stones, and that the first word of the complaint should be the 
signal to every fellow to let fly at Old Cheeseman. The bold ad- 
vice put the Society in better spirits, and was unanimously taken. 
A post about Old Cheeseman's size was put up in the playground, 
and all our fellows practised at it till it was dinted all over. 

When the day came, and Places were called, every fellow sat 
down in a tremble. There had been much discussing and disput- 
ing as to how Old Cheeseman would come ; but it was the general 
opinion that he would appear in a sort of triumphal car drawn by 
four horses, with two livery servants in front, and the Prizefighter 
in disguise up behind. So, all our fellows sat listening for the 
sound of wheels. But no wheels were heard, for Old Cheeseman 
walked after all, and came into the school without any preparation. 
Pretty much as he used to be, only dressed in black. 

"Gentlemen," said the Reverend, presenting him, "our so long 
respected friend and fellow-pilgrim in the pleasant plains of knowl- 
edge is desirous to offer a word or two. Attention, gentlemen, 
one and all ! " 

Every fellow stole his hand into his desk and looked at the 
President. The President was all ready, and taking aim at Old 
Cheeseman with his eyes. 

What did Old Cheeseman then, but walk up to his old desk, 



THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 21 

look round him with a queer smile as if there was a tear in his 
eye, and begin in a quavering mild voice, " My dear companions 
and old friends ! " 

Every fellow's hand came out of his desk, and the President 
suddenly began to cry. 

" My dear companions and old friends," said Old Cheeseman, 
"you have heard of my good fortune. I have passed so many 
years under this roof — my entire life so far, I may say — that I 
hope you have been glad to hear of it for my sake. I could never 
enjoy it without exchanging congratulations with you. If we have 
ever misunderstood one another at all, pray my dear boys let us 
forgive and forget. I have a great tenderness for you, and I am 
sure you return it. I want in the fulness of a grateful heart to 
shake hands with you every one. I have come back to do it, if 
you please, my dear boys." 

Since the President had begun to cry, several other fellows had 
broken out here and there : but now, when Old Cheeseman began 
with him as first boy, laid his left hand affectionately on his shoul- 
der and gave him his right ; and when the President said " Indeed, 
I don't deserve it, sir ; upon my honour I don't ; " there was sob- 
bing and crying all over the school. Every other fellow said he 
didn't deserve it, much in the same way; but Old Cheeseman, not 
minding that a bit, went cheerfully round to every boy, and wound 
up with every master — finishing off the Reverend last. 

Then a snivelling little chap in the corner, who was always 
under some punishment or other, set up a shrill cry of " Success to 
Old Cheeseman ! Hooray ! " The Reverend glared upon him, 
and said, "i/r. Cheeseman, sir." But, Old Cheeseman protesting 
that he liked his old name a great deal better than his new one, all 
our fellows took up the cry; and, for I don't know how many 
minutes, there was such a thundering of feet and hands, and such a 
roaring of Old Cheeseman, as never was heard. 

After that, there was a spread in the dining-room of the most 
magnificent kind. Fowls, tongues, preserves, fruits, confection- 
eries, jellies, neguses, barley-sugar temples, trifles, crackers — eat 
all you can and pocket what you like — all at Old Cheeseman's 
expense. After that, speeches, whole holiday, double and treble 
sets of all manners of things for all manners of games, donkeys, 
pony-chaises and drive yourself, dinner for all the masters at the 
Seven Bells (twenty pounds a head our fellows estimated it at), 
an annual holiday and feast fixed for that day every year, and 
another on Old Cheeseman's birthday ^ — Reverend bound down 
before the fellows to allow it, so that he could never back out — 
all at Old Cheeseman's expense. 



22 THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY. 

And didn't our fellows go down in a body and cheer outside the 
Seven Bells ? no ! 

But there's something else besides. Don't look at the next story- 
teller, for there's more yet. Next day, it was resolved that the 
Society should make it up with Jane, and then be dissolved. 
What do you think of Jane being gone, though ! " What ? 
Gone for ever ? " said our fellows, with long faces. " Yes, to 
be sure," was all the answer they could get. None of the people 
about the house would say anything more. At length, the first 
boy took upon himself to ask the Reverend whether our old friend 
Jane was really gone 1 The Reverend (he has got a daughter at 
home — turn-up nose, and red) replied severely, "Yes, sir, Miss 
Pitt is gone." The idea of calling Jane, Miss Pitt! Some said 
she had been sent away in disgrace for taking money from Old 
Cheeseman ; others said she had gone into Old Cheeseman's service 
at a rise of ten pounds a year. All that our fellows knew, was, she 
was gone. 

It was two or three months afterwards, when, one afternoon, an 
open carriage stopped at the cricket field, just outside bounds, with 
a lady and gentleman in it, who looked at the game a long time 
and stood up to see it played. Nobody thought much about them, 
until the same little snivelling chap came in, against all rules, from 
the post where he was Scout, and said, " It's Jane ! " Both Elev- 
ens forgot the game directly, and ran crowding round the carriage. 
It was Jane ! In such a bonnet ! And if you'll believe me, Jane 
was married to Old Cheeseman. 

It soon became quite a regular thing when our fellows were hard 
at it in the playground, to see a carnage at the low part of the wall 
where it joins the high part, and a lady and gentleman standing 
up in it, looking over. The gentleman was always Old Cheese- 
man, and the lady was always Jane. 

The first time I ever saw them, I saw them in that way. There 
had been a good many changes among our fellows then, and it had 
turned out that Bob Tarter's father wasn't worth Millions ! He 
wasn't worth anything. Bob had gone for a soldier, and Old 
Cheeseman had purchased his discharge. But that's not the car- 
riage. The carriage stopped, and all our fellows stopped as soon 
as it was seen. 

" So you have never sent me to Coventry after all ! " said the 
lady, laughing, as our fellows swarmed up the wall to shake hands 
with her. " Are you never going to do it ? " 

" Never ! never ! never ! " on all sides. 

I didn't understand what she meant then, but of course I do 
now. I was very much pleased with her face though, and with 



NOBODY'S STORY. 23 

her good way, and I couldn't help looking at her — and at him 
too — with all our fellows clustering so joyfully about them. 

They soon took notice of me as a new boy, so I thought I might 
as well swarm up the wall myself, and shake hands with them as 
the rest did. I was quite as glad to see them as the rest were, 
and was quite as familiar with them in a moment. 

" Only a fortnight now," said Old Cheeseman, " to the holidays. 
Who stops ? Anybody ? " 

A good many fingers pointed at me, and a good many voices 
cried " He does ! " For it was the year when you were all away ; 
and rather low I was about it, I can tell you. 

" Oh ! " said Old Cheeseman. " But it's solitary here in the 
holiday time. He had better come to us." 

So I went to their delightful house, and was as happy as I 
could possibly be. They understand how to conduct themselves 
towards boys, they do. When they take a boy to the play, for 
instance, they do take him. They don't go in after it's begun, or 
come out before it's over. They know how to bring a boy up, 
too. Look at their own ! Though he is very little as yet, 
what a capital boy he is ! Why, my next favourite to Mrs. 
Cheeseman and Old Cheeseman, is young Cheeseman. 

So, now I have told you all I know about Old Cheeseman. And 
it's not much after all, I am afraid. Is it % 



From ^^ Another Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire" being the 
Exti'a Christmas Number of ^^ Household Words "for Christmas, 1853. 

NOBODY'S STORY. 

He lived on the bank of a mighty river, broad and deep, which 
was always silently rolling on to a vast undiscovered ocean. It 
had rolled on, ever since the world began. It had changed its 
course sometimes, and turned into new channels, leaving its old 
ways dry and barren ; but it had ever been upon the flow, and ever 
was to flow until Time should be no more. Against its strong, 
unfathomable stream, nothing made head. No living creature, no 
flower, no leaf, no particle of animate or inanimate existence, ever 
strayed back from the undiscovered ocean. The tide of the river 
set resistlessly towards it ; and the tide never stopped, any more 
than the earth stops in its circling round the sun. 

He lived in a busy place, and he worked very hard to live. He 
had no hope of ever being rich enough to live a month without 



24 NOBODY'S STORY. 

hard work, but he was quite content, God knows, to labour with 
a cheerful will. He was one of an immense family, all of whose 
sons and daughters gained their daily bread by daily work, pro- 
longed from their rising up betimes until their lying down at night. 
Beyond this destiny he had no prospect, and he sought none. 

There was over-much drumming, trumpeting, and speech-making, 
in the neighbourhood w^here he dwelt ; but he had nothing to do 
with that. Such clash and uproar came from the Bigwig family, 
at the unaccountable proceedings of which race, he marvelled much. 
They set up the strangest statues, in iron, marble, bronze, and 
brass, before his door ; and darkened his house with the legs and 
tails of uncouth images of horses. He wondered what it all meant, 
smiled in a rough good-humoured way he had, and kept at his hard 
work. 

The Bigwig family (composed of all the stateliest people there- 
abouts, and all the noisiest) had undertaken to save him the trouble 
of thinking for himself, and to manage him and his affairs. " Why 
truly," said he, "I have little time upon my hands; and if you 
will be so good as to take care of me, in return for the money I pay 
over " — for the Bigwig family were not above his money — "I shall 
be relieved and much obliged, considering that you know best." 
Hence the drumming, trumpeting, and speech-making, and the ugly 
images of horses which he was expected to fall down and worship. 

"I don't understand all this," said he, rubbing his furrowed 
brow confusedly. "But it has a meaning, maybe, if I could find 
it out." 

" It means," returned the Bigwig family, suspecting something 
of what he said, " honour and glory in the highest, to the highest 
merit." 

" Oh ! " said he. And he was glad to hear that. 

But, when he looked among the images in iron, marble, bronze, 
and brass, he failed to find a rather meritorious countryman of 
his, once the son of a Warwickshire wool-dealer, or any single 
countryman whomsoever of that kind. He could find none of the 
men whose knowledge had rescued him and his children from ter- 
rific and disfiguring disease, whose boldness had raised his fore- 
fathers from the condition of serfs, whose wise fancy had opened 
a new and high existence to the humblest, whose skill had filled 
the workingman's world with accumulated wonders. Whereas, he 
did find others whom he knew no good of, and even others whom 
he knew much ill of. 

" Humph ! " said he. "I don't quite understand it." 

So, he went home, and sat down by his fire-side to get it out of 
his mind. 



NOBODY'S STORY. 25 

Now, his fire-side was a bare one, all hemmed in by blackened 
streets; but it was a precious place to him. The hands of his 
wife were hardened with toil, and she was old before her time ; 
but she was dear to him. His children, stunted in their growth, 
bore traces of unwholesome nurture ; but they had beauty in his 
sight. Above all other things, it was an earnest desire of this 
man's soul that his children should be taught. " If I am some- 
times misled," said he, " for want of knowledge, at least let them 
know better, and avoid my mistakes. If it is hard to me to reap 
the harvest of pleasure and instruction that is stored in books, let 
it be easier to them." 

But, the Bigwig family broke out into violent family quarrels 
concerning what it was lawful to teach to this man's children. 
Some of the family insisted on such a thing being primary and 
indispensable above all other things ; and others of the family in- 
sisted on such another thing being primary and indispensable above 
all other things ; and the Bigwig family, rent into factions, wrote 
pamphlets, held convocations, delivered charges, orations, and all 
varieties of discourses ; impounded one another in courts Lay and 
courts Ecclesiastical ; threw dirt, exchanged pummellings, and fell 
together by the ears in unintelligible animosity. Meanwhile, this 
man, in his short evening snatches at his fire-side, saw the demon 
Ignorance arise there, and take his children to itself. He saw his 
daughter perverted into a heavy slatternly drudge ; he saw his son 
go moping down the ways of low sensuality, to brutality and crime ; 
he saw the dawning light of intelligence in the eyes of his babies 
so changing into cunning and suspicion, that he could have rather 
wished them idiots. 

" I don't understand this any the better," said he ; " but I think 
it cannot be right. Nay, by the clouded Heaven above me, I pro- 
test against this as my wrong ! " 

Becoming peaceable again (for his passion was usually short- 
lived, and his nature kind), he looked about him on his Sundays 
and holidays, and he saw how much monotony and weariness there 
was, and thence how drunkenness arose with all its train of ruin. 
Then he appealed to the Bigwig family, and said, " We are a labour- 
ing people, and I have a glimmering suspicion in me that labouring 
people of whatever condition were made — by a higher intelligence 
than yours, as I poorly understand it — to be in need of mental 
refreshment and recreation. See what we fall into, when we rest 
without it. Come ! Amuse me harmlessly, show me something, 
give me an escape ! " 

But, here the Bigwig family fell into a state of uproar absolutely 
deafening. When some few voices were faintly heard, proposing 



26 NOBODY'S STORY. 

to show him the wonders of the world, the greatness of creation, 
the mighty changes of time, the workings of nature and the beauties 
of art — to show him these things, that is to say, at any period of 
his life when he could look upon them — there arose among the 
Bigwigs such roaring and raving, such pulpiting and petitioning, 
such maundering and memorialising, such name-calling and dirt- 
throwing, such a shrill wind of parliamentary questioning and 
feeble replying — where "I dare not" waited on "I would" — 
that the poor fellow stood aghast, staring wildly around. 

"Have I provoked all this," said he, with his hands to his 
affrighted ears, " by what was meant to be an innocent request, 
plainly arising out of my familiar experience, and the common 
knowledge of all men who choose to open their eyes? I don't 
understand, and I am not understood. What is to come of such 
a state of things ! " 

He was bending over his work, often asking himself the ques- 
tion, when the news began to spread that a pestilence had appeared 
among the labourers, and was slaying them by thousands. Going 
forth to look about him, he soon found this to be true. The dying 
and the dead were mingled in the close and tainted houses among 
which his life was passed. New poison was distilled into the 
always murky, always sickening air. The robust and the weak, 
old age and infancy, the father and the mother, all were stricken 
down alike. 

What means of flight had he? He remained there, where he 
was, and saw those who were dearest to him die. A kind preacher 
came to him, and would have said some prayers to soften his heart 
in his gloom, but he replied : 

" what avails it, missionary, to come to me, a man condemned 
to residence in this fcetid place, where every sense bestowed upon 
me for my delight becomes a torment, and where every minute of 
my numbered days is new mire added to the heap under which I 
lie oppressed ! But, give me my first glimpse of Heaven, through 
a little of its light and air ; give me pure water ; help me to be 
clean ; lighten this heavy atmosphere and heavy life, in which our 
spirits sink, and we become the indifferent and callous creatures 
you too often see us ; gently and kindly take the bodies of those 
who die among us, out of the small room where we grow to be so 
familiar with the awful change that even its sanctity is lost to us ; 
and. Teacher, then I will hear — none know better than you, how 
willingly — of Him whose thoughts were so much with the poor, 
and who had compassion for all human sorrow ! " 

He was at his work again, solitary and sad, when his Master 
came and stood near to him dressed in black. He, also, had suf- 



NOBODY'S STORY. 27 

fered heavily. His young wife, his beautiful and good young wife, 
was dead ; so, too, his only child. 

"Master, 'tis hard to bear — I know it — but be comforted. I 
would give you comfort, if I could." 

The Master thanked him from his heart, but, said he, " you 
labouring men ! The calamity began among you. If you had but 
Uved more healthily and decently, I should not be the widowed 
and bereft moarner that I am this day." 

"Master," returned the other, shaking his head, "I have begun 
to understand a little that most calamities will come from us, as 
this one did, and that none will stop at our poor doors, until we 
are united with that great squabbling family -yonder, to do the 
things that are right. We cannot live healthily and decently, 
unless they who undertook to manage us provide the means. We 
cannot be instructed unless they will teach us ; we cannot be ra- 
tionally amused, unless they will amuse us ; we cannot but have some 
false gods of our own, while they set up so many of theirs in all the 
public places. The evil consequences of imperfect instruction, the 
evil consequences of pernicious neglect, the evil consequences of 
unnatural restraint and the denial of humanising enjoyments, will 
all come from us, and none of them will stop with us. They will 
spread far and wide. They always do ; they always have done — 
just like the pestilence. I understand so much, I think, at last." 

But the Master said again, "0 you labouring men! How 
seldom do we ever hear of you, except in connection with some 
trouble ! " 

" Master," he replied, " I am Nobody, and little likely to be 
heard of (nor yet much wanted to be heard of, perhaps), except 
when there is some trouble. But it never begins with me, and it 
never can end with me. As sure as Death, it comes down to me, 
and it goes up from me." 

There was so much reason in what he said, that the Bigwig 
family, getting wind of it, and being horribly frightened by the 
late desolation, resolved to unite with him to do the things that 
were right — at all events, so far as the said things were associated 
with the direct prevention, humanly speaking, of another pestilence. 
But, as their fear wore off, which it soon began to do, they resumed 
their falling out among themselves, and did nothing. Consequently 
the scourge appeared again — low down as before — and spread 
avengingly upward as before, and carried off vast numbers of the 
brawlers. But not a man among them ever admitted, if in the 
least degree he ever perceived, that he had anything to do with it. 

So Nobody lived and died in the old, old, old way ; and this, in 
the main, is the whole of Nobody's story. 



28 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 

Had he no name, you ask ? Perhaps it was Legion. It matters 
httle what his name was. Let us call him Legion. 

If you were ever in the Belgian villages near the field of Water- 
loo, you will have seen, in some quiet little church, a monument 
erected by faithful companions in arms to the memory of Colonel 
A, Major B, Captains C, D, and E, Lieutenants F and G, Ensigns 
H, I, and J, seven non-commissioned officers, and one hundred and 
thirty rank and file, who fell in the discharge of their duty on the 
memorable day. The story of Nobody is the stoiy of the rank 
and file of the earth. They bear their share of the battle • they 
have their part in the victory; they fall; they leave no name but 
m the mass. The march of the proudest of us, leads to the dusty 
way by which they go. ! Let us think of them this year at the 
Christmas fire, and not forget them when it is burnt out 



THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 

IN TWO CHAPTERS. 

Chapter I. 

THE FIRST POOR TRAVELLER. 

Strictly speaking, there were only six Poor Travellers • but 
being a Traveller myself, though an idle one, and being withal as 
poor as I hope to be, I brought the number up to seven This 
word of explanation is due at once, for what says the inscription 
over the quaint old door ? j i u 

Richard Watts, Esq. 

by his Will, dated 22 Aug. 1579, 

founded this Charity 

for Six poor Travellers, 

who not being Rogues, or Proctors 

May receive gratis for one Night, 

Lodging, Entertainment, 

and Fourpence each. 

It was in the ancient little city of Rochester in Kent, of all the 
good days m the year upon a Christmas-eve, that I stood reading 
this inscription over the quaint old door in question. I had been 
tr^t'TI-'.^^w!."'^^-^^"^'^"^ ^''^'''^''^^ '^^d had seen the 
starting out of it like a ship's figure-head; and I had felt that I 



THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 29 

5ould do no less, as I gave the Verger his fee, than inquire the 
i^ay to Watts's Charity. The way being very short and very plain, 
[ had come prosperously to the inscription and the quaint old door. 

" Now," said I to myself, as I looked at the knocker, " I know 
[ am not a Proctor ; I wonder whether I am a Rogue ! " 

Upon the whole, though Conscience reproduced two or three 
pretty faces which might have had smaller attraction for a moral 
Groliath than they had had for me, who am but a Tom Thumb in 
that way, I came to the conclusion that I was not a Rogue. So, 
beginning to regard the establishment as in some sort my property, 
bequeathed to me and divers co-legatees, share and share alike, by 
the Worshipful Master Richard Watts, I steppM backward into 
the road to survey my inheritance. 

I found it to be a clean white house, of a staid and venerable 
air, with the quaint old door already three times mentioned (an 
arched door), choice little long low lattice-windows, and a roof of 
three gables. The silent High-street of Rochester is full of gables, 
with old beams and timbers carved into strange faces. It is oddly 
garnished with a queer old clock that projects over the pavement 
out of a grave red-brick building, as if Time carried on business 
there, and hung out his sign. Sooth to say, he did an active stroke 
of work in Rochester, in the old days of the Romans, and the Sax- 
ons, and the Normans ; and down to the times of King John, when 
the rugged castle — I will not undertake to say how many hun- 
dreds of years old then — was abandoned to the centuries of 
weather which have so defaced the dark apertures in its walls, that 
the ruin looks as if the rooks and daws had pecked its eyes out. 

I was very well pleased, both with my property and its situation. 
While I was yet surveying it with growing content, I espied, at 
one of the upper lattices which stood open, a decent body, of a 
wholesome matronly appearance, whose eyes I caught inquiringly 
addressed to mine. They said so plainly, "Do you wish to see the 
house?" that I answered aloud, "Yes, if you please." And within 
a minute the old door opened, and I bent my head, and went down 
two steps into the entry. 

" This," said the matronly presence, ushering me into a low 
room on the right, " is where the Travellers sit by the fire, and 
cook what bits of suppers they buy with their fourpences." 

" ! Then they have no Entertainment ? " said I. For the in- 
scription over the outer door was still running in my head, and I was 
mentally repeating, in a kind of tune, "Lodging, entertainment, and 
fourpence each." 

"They have a fire provided for 'em," returned the matron, — a 
mighty civil person, not, as I could make out, overpaid; "and 



30 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 

these cooking utensils. And this what's painted on a board is the 
rules for their behaviour. They have their fourpences when they 
get their tickets from the steward over the way, — for I don't 
admit 'em myself, they must get their tickets first, — and some- 
times one buys a rasher of bacon, and another a herring, and 
another a pound of potatoes, or what not. Sometimes two or 
three of 'em will club their fourpences together, and make a sup- 
per that way. But not much of anything is to be got for four- 
pence, at present, when provisions is so dear." 

"True indeed," I remarked. I had been looking about the 
room, admiring its snug fire-side at the upper end, its glimpse of 
the street through the low mullioned window, and its beams over- 
head. "It is very comfortable," said I. 

" Ill-con wenient," observed the matronly presence. 

I liked to hear her say so ; for it showed a commendable anxiety 
to execute in no niggardly spirit the intentions of Master Richard 
Watts. But the room was really so well adapted to its purpose 
that I protested, quite enthusiastically, against her disparagement. 

" Nay, ma'am," said I, " I am sure it is warm in winter and cool 
in summer. It has a look of homely welcome and soothing rest. 
It has a remarkably cosy fire-side, the very blink of which, gleam- 
ing out into the street upon a winter night, is enough to warm all 
Rochester's heart. And as to the convenience of the six Poor 
Travellers — " 

"I don't mean them," returned the presence. "I speak of its 
being an ill-con wenience to myself and my daughter, having no 
other room to sit in of a night." 

This was true enough, but there was another quaint room of 
corresponding dimensions on the opposite side of the entry : so I 
stepped across to it, through the open doors of both rooms, and 
asked what this chamber was for. 

"This," returned the presence, "is the Board Room. Where 
the gentlemen meet when they come here." 

Let me see. I had counted from the street six upper windows 
besides these on the ground-story. Making a perplexed calculation 
in my mind, I rejoined, "Then the six Poor Travellers sleep 
up-stairs 1 " 

My new friend shook her head. " They sleep," she answered, 
"in two little outer galleries at the back, where their beds has 
always been, ever since the Charity was founded. It being so very 
ill-conwenient to me as things is at present, the gentlemen are 
going to take off* a bit of the back-yard, and make a slip of a room 
for 'em there, to sit in before they go to bed." 

"And then the six Poor Travellers," said I, " will be entirely out 
of the house?" 



THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 31 

"Entirely out of the house," assented the presencCj comfortably- 
smoothing her hands. " Which is considered much better for all 
parties, and much more conwenient." 

I had been a little startled, in the Cathedral, by the emphasis 
with which the effigy of Master Richard Watts was bursting out of 
his tomb ; but I began to think, now, that it might be expected to 
come across the High-street some stormy night, and make a dis- 
turbance here. 

Howbeit, I kept my thoughts to myself, and accompanied the 
presence to the little galleries at the back. I found them on a tiny 
scale, like the galleries in old inn-yards ; and they were very clean. 
While I was looking at them, the matron gave, me to understand 
that the prescribed number of Poor Travellers were forthcoming 
every night from year's end to year's end ; and that the beds were 
always occupied. My questions upon this, and her replies, brought 
us back to the Board Room so essential to the dignity of "the 
gentlemen," where she showed me the printed accounts of the 
Charity hanging up by the window. From them I gathered that 
the greater part of the property bequeathed by the Worshipful 
Master Richard Watts for the maintenance of this foundation was, 
at the period of his death, mere marsh-land ; but that, in course of 
time, it had been reclaimed and built upon, and was very consider- 
ably increased in value. I found, too, that about a thirtieth part 
of the annual revenue was now expended on the purposes commem- 
orated in the inscription over the door ; the rest being handsomely 
laid out in Chancery, law expenses, collectorship, receivership, 
poundage, and other appendages of management, highly compli- 
mentary to the importance of the six Poor Travellers. In short, 
I made the not entirely new discovery that it may be said of an 
establishment like this, in dear old England, as of the fat oyster in the 
American story, that it takes a good many men to swallow it whole. 

"And pray, ma'am," said I, sensible that the blankness of my 
face began to brighten as the thought occurred to me, " could one 
see these Travellers 1 " 

" Well ! " she returned dubiously, " no ! " 

" Not to-night, for instance ! " said I. 

"Well!" she returned more positively, "no. Nobody ever 
asked to see them, and nobody ever did see them." 

As I am not easily balked in a design when I am set upon it, I 
urged to the good lady that this was Christmas-eve ; that Christmas 
comes but once a year, — which is unhappily too true, for when it 
begins to stay with us the whole year round we shall make this 
earth a very different place ; that I was possessed by the desire to 
treat the Travellers to a supper and a temperate glass of hot Was- 



32 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 

sail ; that the voice of Fame had been heard in that land, declar- 
ing my ability to make hot Wassail ; that if I were permitted to 
hold the feast, I should be found conformable to reason, sobriety, 
and good hours ; in a word, that I could be merry and wise myself, 
and had been even known at a pinch to keep others so, although 1 
was decorated with no badge or medal, and was not a Brother, Ora- 
tor, Apostle, Saint, or Prophet of any denomination whatever. In 
the end I prevailed, to my great joy. It was settled that at nine 
o'clock that night a Turkey and a piece of Roast Beef should 
smoke upon the board ; and that I, faint and unworthy minister 
for once of Master Richard Watts, should preside as the Christmas- 
supper host of the six Poor Travellers. 

I went back to my inn to give the necessary directions for the 
Turkey and Roast Beef, and, during the remainder of the day, 
could settle to nothing for thinking of the Poor Travellers. When 
the wind blew hard against the windows, — it was a cold day, with 
dark gusts of sleet alternating with periods of wild brightness, as 
if the year were dying fitfully, — I pictured them advancing tow- 
ards their resting-place along various cold roads, and felt delighted 
to think how little they foresaw the supper that awaited them. I 
painted their portraits in my mind, and indulged in little heightening 
touches. I made them footsore ; I made them weary ; I made them 
carry packs and bundles ; I made them stop by finger-posts and 
milestones, leaning on their bent sticks, and looking wistfully at 
what was written there ; I made them lose their way ; and filled 
their five wits with apprehensions of lying out all night, and being 
frozen to death. I took up my hat, and went out, climbed to the 
top of the Old Castle, and looked over the windy hills that slope 
down to the Medway, almost belie^dng that I could descry some of 
my Travellers in the distance. After it fell dark, and the Cathe- 
dral bell was heard in the invisible steeple — quite a bower of 
frosty rime when I had last seen it — striking five, six, seven, I 
became so full of my Travellers that I could eat no dinner, and felt 
constrained to watch them still in the red coals of my fire. They 
were all arrived by this time, I thought, had got their tickets, and 
v/ere gone in. — There my pleasure was dashed by the reflection 
that probably some Travellers had come too late and were shut 
out. 

After the Cathedral bell had struck eight, I could smeU a delicious 
savour of Turkey and Roast Beef rising to the window of my adjoin- 
ing bedroom, which looked down into the inn-yard just where the 
lights of the kitchen reddened a massive fragment of the Castle Wall. 
It was high time to make the Wassail now ; therefore I had up the 
materials (which, together with their proportions and combinations. 



THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 33 

I must decline to impart, as the only secret of my own I was ever 
known to keep), and made a glorious jorum. Not in a bowl ; for 
a bowl anywhere but on a shelf is a low superstition, fraught with 
cooling and slopping ; but in a brown earthenware pitcher, tenderly 
sufltbcated, when full, with a coarse cloth. . It being now upon the 
stroke of nine, I set out for Watts's Charity, carrying my brown 
beauty in my arms. I would trust Ben, the waiter, with untold 
gold ; but there are strings in the human heart which must never 
be sounded by another, and drinks that I make myself are those 
strings in mine. 

The Travellers were all assembled, the cloth was laid, and Ben 
had brought a great billet of wood, and had laid it artfully on the 
top of the fire, so that a toucli or two of the poker after supper 
should make a roaring blaze. Having deposited my brown beauty 
in a red nook of the hearth, inside the fender, where she soon began 
to sing like an ethereal cricket, diffusing at the same time odours 
as of ripe vineyards, spice forests, and orange groves, — I say, hav- 
ing stationed my beauty in a place of security and improvement, I 
introduced myself to my guests by shaking hands all round, and 
giving them a hearty welcome. 

I found the party to be thus composed. Firstly, myself. Sec- 
ondly, a very decent man indeed, with his right arm in a sling, who 
had a certain clean agreeable smell of wood about him, from which 
I judged him to have something to do with shipbuilding. Thirdly, 
a little sailor-boy, a mere child, with a profusion of rich dark brown 
hair, and deep womanly-looking eyes. Fourthly, a shabby-genteel 
personage in a threadbare black suit, and apparently in very bad 
circumstances, with a dry suspicious look ; the absent buttons on 
his waistcoat eked out with red tape ; and a bundle of extraordina- 
rily tattered papers sticking out of an inner breast-pocket. Fifthly, 
a foreigner by birth, but an Englishman in speech, who carried his 
pipe in the band of his hat, and lost no time in telling me, in an 
easy, simple, engaging way, that he was a watchmaker from Geneva, 
and travelled all about the Continent, mostly on foot, working as a 
journeyman, and seeing new countries, — possibly (I thought) also 
smuggling a watch or so, now and then. Sixthly, a little widow, 
who had been very pretty and was still very young, but whose 
beauty had been wrecked in some great misfortune, and whose 
manner was remarkably timid, scared, and solitary. Seventhly and 
lastly, a Traveller of a kind familiar to my boyhood, but now almost 
obsolete, — a Book-Pedler, who had a quantity of Pamphlets and 
Numbers with him, and who presently boasted that he could repeat 
more verses in an evening than he could sell in a twelvemonth. 

All these I have mentioned in the order in which they sat at 



34 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 

table. I presided, and the matronly presence faced me. We were 
not long in taking our places, for the supper had arrived with me, 
in the following procession : 

Myself with the pitcher. 

Ben with Beer. 

Inattentive Boy with hot plates. Inattentive Boy with hot plates. 

THE TURKEY. 

Female carrying sauces to be heated on the spot. 

THE BEEF. 

Man with Tray on his head, containing Vegetables and Sundries. 

Volunteer Hostler from Hotel, grinning, 

And rendering no assistance. 

As we passed along the High-street, comet-like, we left a long 
tail of fragrance behind us which caused the public to stop, sniffing 
in wonder. We had previously left at the corner of the inn-yard 
a wall-eyed young man connected with the Fly department, and well 
accustomed to the sound of a railway whistle which Ben always 
carries in his pocket, whose instructions were, so soon as he should 
hear the whistle blown, to dash into the kitchen, seize the hot plum- 
pudding and mince-pies, and speed with them to Watts's Charity, 
where they would be received (he was further instructed) by the 
sauce-female, who would be provided with brandy in a blue state 
of combustion. 

All these arrangements were executed in the most exact and 
punctual manner. I never saw a finer turkey, finer beef, or greater 
prodigality of sauce and gravy ; and my Travellers did wonderful 
justice to everything set before them. It made my heart rejoice 
to observe how their wind and frost hardened faces softened in the 
clatter of plates and knives and forks, and mellowed in the fire and 
supper heat. While their hats and caps and wrappers, hanging 
up, a few small bundles on the ground in a corner, and in another 
corner three or four old walking-sticks, worn down at the end to 
mere fringe, linked this snug interior with the bleak outside in a 
golden chain. 

When supper was done, and my brown beauty had been elevated 
on the table, there was a general requisition to me to " take the 
corner ; " which suggested to me comfortably enough how much 
my friends here made of a fire, — for when had / ever thought so 
highly of the corner, since the days when I connected it with Jack 
Horner? However, as I declined, Ben, whose touch on all con- 
vivial instruments is perfect, drew the table apart, and instructing 
my Travellers to open right and left on either side of me, and form 



THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 35 

round the fire, closed up the centre with myself and my chair, and 
preserved the order we had kept at table. He had already, in a 
tranquil manner, boxed the ears of the inattentive boys until they 
had been by imperceptible degrees boxed out of the room ; and he 
now rapidly skirmished the sauce-female into the High-street, dis- 
appeared, and softly closed the door. 

This was the time for bringing the poker to bear on the billet of 
wood. I tapped it three times, like an enchanted talisman, and 
a brilliant host of merrymakers burst out of it, and sported off by 
the chimney, — rushing up the middle in a fiery country dance, and 
never coming down again. Meanwhile, by their sparkling light, 
which threw our lamp into the shade, I filled the glasses, and gave 
my Travellers, Christmas ! — Christmas-eve," my friends, when 
the shepherds, who were Poor Travellers, too, in their way, heard 
the Angels sing, " On earth, peace. Good-will towards men ! " 

I don't know who was the first among us to think that we ought 
to take hands as we sat, in deference to the toast, or whether any 
one of us anticipated the others, but at any rate we all did it. 
We then drank to the memory of the good Master Richard Watts. 
And I wish his Chost may never have had worse usage under that 
roof than it had from us. 

It was the witching time for Story-telling. " Our whole life, 
Travellers," said I, "is a story more or less intelligible, — generally 
less ; but we shall read it by a clearer light when it is ended. I, 
for one, am so divided this night between fact and fiction, that 
I scarce know which is which. Shall I beguile the time by telling 
you a story as we sit here 1 " 

They all answered, yes. I had little to tell them, but I was 
bound by my own proposal. Therefore, after looking for awhile at 
the spiral column of smoke wreathing up from my brown beauty, 
through which I could have almost sworn I saw the efiigy of Master 
Richard Watts less startled than usual, I fired away. 

In the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, a rela- 
tive of mine came limping down, on foot, to this town of Chatham. 
I call it this town, because if anybody present knows to a nicety 
where Rochester ends and Chatham begins, it is more than I do. 
He was a poor traveller, with not a farthing in his pocket. He 
sat by the fire in this very room, and he slept one night in a bed 
that will be occupied to-night by some one here. 

My relative came down to Chatham to enlist in a cavalry regi- 
ment, if a cavalry regiment would have him ; if not, to take King 
George's shilling from any corporal or serjeant who would put a 
bunch of ribbons in his hat. His object was to get shot ; but he 



36 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 

thought he might as well ride to death as be at the trouble of 
walking. 

My relative's Christian name was Richard, but he was better 
known as Dick. He dropped his own surname on the road down, 
and took up that of Doubledick. He was passed as Richard 
Doubledick ; age, twenty-two ; height, five foot ten ; native place, 
Exmouth, which he had never been near in his life. There was 
no cavalry in Chatham when he limped over the bridge here with 
half a shoe to his dusty feet, so he enlisted into a regiment of the 
line, and was glad to get drunk and forget all about it. 

You are to know that this relative of mine had gone wrong, and 
run wild. His heart was in the right place, but it was sealed up. 
He had been betrothed to a good and beautiful girl, whom he had 
loved better than she — or perhaps even he — believed ; but in an 
evil hour he had given her cause to say to him solemnly, " Richard, 
I will never marry another man. I will live single for your sake, 
but Mary Marshall's lips" — her name was Mary Marshall — 
'' never address another word to you on earth. Go, Richard ! 
Heaven forgive you ! " This finished him. This brought him 
down to Chatham. This made him Private Richard Doubledick, 
with a determination to be shot. 

There was not a more dissipated and reckless soldier in Chatham 
barracks, in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, 
than Private Richard Doubledick. He associated with the dregs 
of every regiment; he was as seldom sober as he could be, and 
was constantly under punishment. It became clear to the whole 
barracks that Private Richard Doubledick would very soon be 
flogged. 

Now the Captain of Richard Doubledick's company was a young 
gentleman not above fi.ve years his senior, whose eyes had an ex- 
pression in them which affected Private Richard Doubledick in a 
very remarkable way. They were bright, handsome, dark eyes, — 
what are called laughing eyes generally, and, when serious, rather 
steady than severe, — but they were the only eyes now left in his 
narrowed world that Private Richard Doubledick could not stand. 
Unabashed by evil report and punishment, defiant of everything 
else and everybody else, he had but to know that those eyes looked 
at him for a moment, and he felt ashamed. He could not so much 
as salute Captain Taunton in the street like any other ofiicer. He 
was reproached and confused, — troubled by the mere possibility 
of the captain's looking at him. In his worst moments, he would 
rather turn back, and go any distance out of his way, than en- 
counter those two handsome, dark, bright eyes. 

One day, when Private Richard Doubledick came out of the 



THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 37 

Black hole, where he had been passing the last eight-and-forty 
hours, and in which retreat he spent a good deal of his time, he 
was ordered to betake himself to Captain Taunton's quarters. In 
the stale and squalid state of a man just out of the Black hole, he 
had less fancy than ever for being seen by the captain ; but he was 
not so mad yet as to disobey orders, and consequently went up to 
the terrace overlooking the parade-ground, where the oflBcers' quar- 
ters were ; twisting and breaking in his hands, as he went along, a 
bit of the straw that had formed the decorative furniture of the 
Black hole. 

" Come in ! " cried the Captain, when he knocked with his 
knuckles at the door. Private Richard Doubledick pulled off his 
cap, took a stride forward, and felt very conscious that he stood 
in the light of the dark, bright eyes. 

There was a silent pause. Private Richard Doubledick had put 
the straw in his mouth, and was gradually doubling it up into his 
windpipe and choking himself. 

"Doubledick," said the Captain, "do you know where you are 
going to *? " 

"To the Devil, sir?" faltered Doubledick. 

"Yes," returned the Captain. "And very fast." 

Private Richard Doubledick turned the straw of the Black hole 
in his mouth, and made a miserable salute of acquiescence. 

" Doubledick," said the Captain, " since I entered his Majesty's 
service, a boy of seventeen, I have been pained to see many men 
of promise going that road ; but I have never been so pained to 
see a man determined to make the shameful journey as I have 
been, ever since you joined the regiment, to see you." 

Private Richard Doubledick began to find a film stealing over 
the floor at which he looked ; also to find the legs of the Captain's 
breakfast-table turning crooked, as if he saw them through water. 

"I am only a common soldier, sir," said he. "It signifies very 
little what such a poor brute comes to." 

"You are a man," returned the Captain, with grave indignation, 
" of education and superior advantages ; and if you say that, mean- 
ing what you say, you have sunk lower than I had believed. How 
low that must be, I leave you to consider, knowing what I know 
of your disgrace, and seeing what I see." 

" I hope to get shot soon, sir," said Private Richard Doubledick ; 
" and then the regiment and the world together will be rid of me." 

The legs of the table were becoming very crooked. Doubledick, 
looking up to steady his vision, met the eyes that had so strong an 
influence over him. He put his hand before his own eyes, and the 
breast of his disgrace-jacket swelled as if it would fly asunder. 



38 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 

"I would rather," said the young Captain, "see this in you, 
Doubledick, than I would see five thousand guineas counted out 
upon this table for a gift to my good mother. Have you a 
mother?" 

" I am thankful to say she is dead, sir." 

"If your praises," returned the Captain, "were sounded from 
mouth to mouth through the whole regiment, through the whole 
army, through the whole country, you would wish she had lived 
to say, with pride and joy, ' He is my son ! ' " 

"Spare me, sir," said Doubledick. "She would never have 
heard any good of me. She would never have had any pride and 
joy in owning herself my mother. Love and compassion she might 
have had, and would have always had, I know ; but not — Spare 
me, sir ! I am a broken wretch, quite at your mercy ! " And he 
turned his face to the wall, and stretched out his imploring hand. 

"My friend — " began the Captain. 

" God bless you, sir ! " sobbed Private Richard Doubledick. 

" You are at the crisis of your fate. Hold your course unchanged 
a little longer, and you know what must happen. / know even 
better than you can imagine, that, after that has happened, you 
are lost. No man who could shed those tears could bear those 
marks." 

" I fully believe it, sir," in a low, shivering voice said Private 
Richard Doubledick. 

" But a man in any station can do his duty," said the young 
Captain, " and, in doing it, can earn his own respect, even if his 
case should be so very unfortunate and so very rare that he can earn 
no other man's. A common soldier, poor brute though you called 
him just now, has this advantage in the stormy times we live in, 
that he always does his duty before a host of sympathising wit- 
nesses. Do you doubt that he may so do it as to be extolled 
through a whole regiment, through a whole army, through a whole 
country ? Turn while you may yet retrieve the past, and try." 

" I will ! I ask for only one witness, sir," cried Richard, with 
a bursting heart. 

" I understand you. I wall be a watchful and a faithful one." 

I have heard from Private Richard Doubledick's own lips, that 
he dropped down upon his knee, kissed that officer's hand, arose, 
and went out of the light of the dark, bright eyes, an altered man. 

In that year, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-nine, the 
French were in Egypt, in Italy, in Germany, where not ? Napo- 
leon Bonaparte had likewise begun to stir against us in India, and 
most men could read the signs of the great troubles that were 
coming on. In the very next year, when we formed an alliance 



THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 39 

with Austria against him, Captain Taunton's regiment was on service 
in India. And there was not a finer non-commissioned officer in 
it, — no, nor in the whole line — than Corporal Richard Doubledick. 

In eighteen hundred and one, the Indian army were on the 
coast of Egypt. Next year was the year of the proclamation of 
the short peace, and they were recalled. It had then become well 
known to thousands of men, that wherever Captain Taunton, with the 
dark, bright eyes, led, there, close to him, ever at his side, firm as 
a rock, true as the sun, and brave as Mars, would be certain to be 
found, while life beat in their hearts, that famous soldier, Serjeant 
Richard Doubledick. 

Eighteen hundred and five, besides being the great year of 
Trafalgar, was a year of hard fighting in India. That year saw 
such wonders done by a Serjeant-Major, who cut his way single- 
handed through a solid mass of men, recovered the colours of his 
regiment, which had been seized from the hand of a poor boy shot 
through the heart, and rescued his wounded Captain, who was 
down, and in a very jungle of horses' hoofs and sabres, — saw such 
wonders done, I say, by this brave Serjeant-Major, that he was 
specially made the bearer of the colours he had won ; and Ensign 
Richard Doubledick had risen from the ranks. 

Sorely cut up in every battle, but always reinforced by the 
bravest of men, — for the fame of following the old colours, shot 
through and through, which Ensign Richard Doubledick had saved, 
inspired all breasts, — this regiment fought its way through the 
Peninsular war, up to the investment of Badajos in eighteen hun- 
dred and twelve. Again and again it had been cheered through 
the British ranks until the tears had sprung into men's eyes at 
the mere hearing of the mighty British voice, so exultant in their 
valour ; and there was not a drummer-boy but knew the legend, 
that wherever the two friends, Major Taunton, with the dark, 
bright eyes, and Ensign Richard Doubledick, who was devoted to 
him, were seen to go, there the boldest spirits in the English army 
became wild to follow. 

One day, at Badajos, — not in the great storming, but in repel- 
ling a hot sally of the besieged upon our men at work in the 
trenches, who had given way, — the two officers found themselves 
hurrying forward, face to face, against a party of French infantry, 
who made a stand. There was an officer at their head, encourag- 
ing his men, — a courageous, handsome, gallant officer of five-and- 
thirty, whom Doubledick saw hurriedly, almost momentarily, but 
saw well. He particularly noticed this officer waving his sword, 
and rallying his men with an eager and excited cry, when they 
fired in obedience to his gesture, and Major Taunton dropped. 



40 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 

It was over in ten minutes more, and Doubleclick returned to 
the spot where he had laid the best friend man ever had on a coat 
spread upon the wet clay. Major Taunton's uniform was opened 
at the breast, and on his shirt were three little spots of blood. 

"Dear Doubledick," said he, "I am dying." 

"For the love of Heaven, no!" exclaimed the other, kneeling 
down beside him, and passing his arm round his neck to raise his 
head. " Taunton ! My preserver, my guardian angel, my witness ! 
Dearest, truest, kindest of human beings ! Taunton ! For God's 
sake ! " 

The bright, dark eyes — so very, very dark now, in the pale 
face — smiled upon him; and the hand he had kissed thirteen 
years ago laid itself fondly on his breast. 

" Write to my mother. You will see Home again. Tell her 
how we became friends. It \\all comfort her, as it comforts me." 

He spoke no more, but faintly signed for a moment towards his 
hair as it fluttered in the wind. The Ensign understood him. He 
smiled again when he saw that, and, gently turning his face over 
on the supporting arm as if for rest, died, with his hand upon the 
breast in which he had revived a soul. 

No dry eye looked on Ensign Richard Doubledick that melan- 
choly day. He buried his friend on the field, and became a lone, 
bereaved man. Beyond his duty he appeared to have but two 
remaining cares in life, — one, to preserve the little packet of hair 
he was to give to Taunton's mother ; the other, to encounter that 
French officer who had rallied the men under whose fire Taunton 
fell. A new legend now began to circulate among our troops ; and 
it was, that when he and the French officer came face to face once 
more, there would be weeping in France. 

The war went on — and through it went the exact picture of 
the French officer on the one side, and the bodily reality upon the 
other — until the Battle of Toulouse was fought. In the returns 
sent home appeared these words : " Severely wounded, but not dan- 
gerously. Lieutenant Richard Doubledick." 

At Midsummer-time, in the year eighteen hundred and fourteen. 
Lieutenant Richard Doubledick, now a browned soldier, seven-and- 
thirty years of age, came home to England invalided. He brought 
the hair with him, near his heart. Many a French officer had he 
seen since that day ; many a dreadful night, in searching with men 
and lanterns for his wounded, had he relieved French officers lying 
disabled ; but the mental picture and the reality had never come 
together. 

Though he was weak and suff'ered pain, he lost not an hour in 
getting down to Frome in Somersetshire, where Taunton's mother 



THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 41 

lived. In the sweet, compassionate words that naturally present 
themselves to the mind to-night, "he was the only son of his 
mother, and she was a widow." 

It was a Sunday evening, and the lady sat at her quiet garden- 
window, reading the Bible ; reading to herself, in a trembling voice, 
that very passage in it, as I have heard him tell. He heard the 
words : " Young man, I say unto thee, arise ! " 

He had to pass the window ; and the bright, dark eyes of his 
debased time seemed to look at him. Her heart told her who he 
was ; she came to the door quickly, and fell upon his neck. 

" He saved me from ruin, made me a human creature, won me 
from infamy and shame. 0, God for ever bless him ! As He will, 
He will ! " 

"He will!" the lady answered. "I know he is in Heaven!" 
Then she piteously cried, "But 0, my darling boy, my darling 
boy!" 

Never from the hour when Private Richard Doubledick enlisted 
at Chatham had the Private, Corporal, Serjeant, Serjeant-Major, 
Ensign, or Lieutenant breathed his right name, or the name of 
Mary Marshall, or a word of the story of his life, into any ear 
except his reclaimer's. That previous scene in his existence was 
closed. He had firmly resolved that his expiation should be to 
live unknown ; to disturb no more the peace that had long grown 
over his old offences ; to let it be revealed, when he was dead, that 
he had striven and suffered, and had never forgotten; and then, if 
they could forgive him and believe him — well, it would be time 
enough — time enough ! 

But that night, remembering the words he had cherished for 
two years, " Tell her how we became friends. It will comfort her, 
as it comforts me," he related everything. It gradually seemed to 
him as if in his maturity he had recovered a mother ; it gradually 
seemed to her as if in her bereavement she had found a son. Dur- 
ing his stay in England, the quiet garden into which he had slowly 
and painfully crept, a stranger, became the boundary of his home ; 
when he was able to rejoin his regiment in the spring, he left the 
garden, thinking was this indeed the first time he had ever turned, 
his face towards the old colours with a woman's blessing ! 

He followed them — so ragged, so scarred and pierced now, that 
they would scarcely hold together — to Quatre Bras and Ligny. 
He stood beside them, in an awful stillness of many men, shadowy 
through the mist and drizzle of a wet June forenoon, on the field 
of Waterloo. And down to that hour the picture in his mind of 
the French officer had never been compared with the reality. 

The famous regiment was in action early in the battle, and re- 



42 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 

ceived its first check in many an eventful year, when he was seen to 
fall. But it swept on to avenge him, and left behind it no such creat- 
ure in the world of consciousness as Lieutenant Richard Doubledick. 
Through pits of mire, and pools of rain ; along deep ditches, once 
roads, that were pounded and ploughed to pieces by artillery, heavy 
waggons, tramp of men and horses, and the struggle of every wheeled 
thing that could carry wounded soldiers ; jolted among the dying 
and the dead, so disfigured by blood and mud as to be hardly recog- 
nisable for humanity ; undisturbed by the moaning of men and the 
shrieking of liorses, which, newly taken from the peaceful pursuits 
of life, could not endure the sight of the stragglers lying by the way- 
side, never to resume their toilsome journey ; dead, as to any sen- 
tient life that was in it, and yet alive, — the form that had been 
Lieutenant Richard Doubledick, with whose praises England rang, 
was conveyed to Brussels. There it was tenderly laid down in hos- 
pital ; and there it lay, week after week, through the long bright 
summer days, until the harvest, spared by war, had ripened and was 
gathered in. 

Over and over again the sun rose and set upon the crowded city ; 
over and over again the moonlight nights were quiet on the plains 
of Waterloo : and all that time w\as a blank to what had been 
Lieutenant Richard Doubledick. Rejoicing troops marched into 
Brussels, and marched out ; brothers and fathers, sisters, mothers, 
and wives, came thronging thither, drew their lots of joy or agony, 
and departed ; so many times a day the bells rang ; so many times 
the shadows of the great buildings changed ; so many lights sprang 
up at dusk ; so many feet passed here and there upon the pave- 
ments ; so many hours of sleep and cooler air of night succeeded : 
indifferent to all, a marble face lay on a bed, like the face of a re- 
cumbent statue on the tomb of Lieutenant Richard Doubledick. 

Slowly labouring, at last, through a long heavy dream of confused^ 
time and place, presenting faint glimpses of army surgeons whom he 
knew, and of faces that had been familiar to his youth, — dearest 
and kindest among them, Mary Marshall's, with a solicitude upoi 
it more like reality than anything he could discern, — Lieutenant 
• Richard Doubledick came back to life. To the beautiful life of 
calm autumn evening sunset, to the peaceful life of a fresh quiet 
room with a large window standing open ; a balcony beyond, ii 
which were moving leaves and sweet-smelling flowers ; beyond, 
again, the clear sky, with the sun full in his sight, pouring its goldei 
radiance on his bed. 

It was so tranquil and so lovely that he thought he had 
into another world. And he said in a faint voice, 
you near me ? " 



THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 43 

A face bent over him. Not his, his mother's. 

" I came to nurse you. We have nursed you many weeks. You 
were moved here long ago. Do you remember nothing 1 " 

"Nothing." 

The lady kissed his cheek, and held his hand, soothing him. 

" Where is the regiment ? What has happened ? Let me call 
you mother. What has happened, mother 1 " 

"A great victory, dear. The war is over, and the regiment was 
the bravest in the field." 

His eyes kindled, his lips trembled, he sobbed, and the tears ran 
down his face. He was very weak, too weak to move his hand. 

" Was it dark just now ? " he asked presently. 

" No." 

" It was only dark to me ? Something passed away, like a black 
shadow. But as it went, and the sun — the blessed sun, how 
beautiful it is ! — touched my face, I thought I saw a light white 
cloud pass out at the door. Was there nothing that went out ? " 

She shook her head, and in a little while he fell asleep, she still 
holding his hand, and soothing him. 

From that time, he recovered. Slowly, for he had been desper- 
ately wounded in the head, and had been shot in the body, but 
making some little advance every day. When he had gained suffi- 
cient strength to converse as he lay in bed, he soon began to remark 
that Mrs. Taunton always brought him back to his own history. 
Then he recalled his preserver's dying words, and thought, " It 
comforts her." 

One day he awoke out of a sleep, refreshed, and asked her to 
read to him. But the curtain of the bed, softening the light, which 
she always drew back when he awoke, that she might see him from 
her table at the bedside where she sat at work, was held undrawn ; 
and a woman's voice spoke, which was not hers. 

"Can you bear to see a stranger?" it said softly. "Will you 
like to see a stranger ? " 

"Stranger !" he repeated. The voice awoke old memories, be- 
fore the days of Private Richard Doubledick. 

"A stranger now, but not a stranger once," it said in tones that 
thrilled him. "Richard, dear Richard, lost through so many years, 
my name — " 

He cried out her name, "Mary," and she held him in her arms, 
and his head lay on her bosom. 

" I am not breaking a rash vow, Richard. These are not Mary 
Marshall's lips that speak. I have another name." 

She was married. 

"I have another name, Richard. Did you ever hear it?" 



44 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 

"Never!" 

He looked into her face, so pensively beautiful, and wondered at 
the smile upon it through her tears. 

" Think again, Richard. Are you sure you never heard my altered 
name ? " 
"Never!" 

" Don't move your head to look at me, dear Richard. Let it lie 
here, while I tell my story. I loved a generous, noble man ; loved 
him with my whole heart; loved him for years and years; loved 
him faithfully, devotedly ; loved him with no hope of return ; 
loved him, knowing nothing of his highest qualities — not even know- 
ing that he was alive. He was a brave soldier. He was honoured 
and beloved by thousands of thousands, when the mother of his 
dear friend found me, and showed me tliat in all his triumphs he 
had never forgotten me. He was wounded in a great battle. He 
was brought, dying, here, into Brussels. I came to watch and tend 
him, as I would have joyfully gone, with such a purpose, to the 
dreariest ends of the earth. When he knew no one else, he knew 
me. When he suffered most, he bore his sufferings barely murmur- 
ing, content to rest his head where yours rests now. When he lay 
at^the point of death, he married me, that he might call me Wife 
before he died. And the name, my dear love, that I took on that 
forgotten night — " 

"I know it now!" he sobbed. "The shadowy remembrance 
strengthens. It is come back. I thank Heaven that my mind is 
quite restored ! My Mary, kiss me ; lull this weary head to rest, 
or I shall die of gratitude. His parting words were fulfilled. I 
see Home again ! " 

Well! They were happy. It was a long recovery, but they 
were happy through it all. The snow had melted on the ground, 
and the birds were singing in the leafless thickets of the early 
spring, when those three were first able to ride out together, and 
when^people flocked about the open carriage to cheer and congratu- 
late Captain Richard Doubledick. 

But even then it became necessary for the Captain, instead of re- 
turning to England, to complete his recovery in the climate of South- 
ern Fmnce. They found a spot upon the Rhone, within a ride of 
the old town of Avignon, and within view of its broken bridge, 
which was all they could desire; they lived there, together, six 
months ; then returned to England. Mrs. Taunton, growing old 
after three years — though not so old as that her bright, dark eyes 
were dimmed — and remembering that her strength had been bene- 
fited by the change, resolved to go back for a year to those parts. 
So she went with a faithful servant, who had often carried her son 



THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 45 

in his arms ; and she was to be rejoined and escorted home, at the 
year's end, by Captain Richard Doubledick. 

She wrote regularly to her children (as she called them now), 
and they to her. She went to the neighbourhood of Aix ; and 
there, in their own chateau near the farmer's house she rented, she 
grew into intimacy with a family belonging to that part of France. 
The intimacy began in her often meeting among the vineyards a 
pretty child, a girl with a most compassionate heart, who was never 
tired of listening to the solitary English lady's stories of her poor 
son and the cruel wars. The family were as gentle as the child, 
and at length she came to know them so well that she accepted 
their invitation to pass the last month of hei* residence abroad 
under their roof All this intelligence she wrote home, piecemeal 
as it came about, from time to time ; and at last enclosed a polite 
note, from the head of the chateau, soliciting, on the occasion of 
his approaching mission to that neighbourhood, the honour of the 
company of cet homme si justement c^l^bre. Monsieur le Capitaine 
Richard Doubledick. 

Captain Doubledick, now a hardy, handsome man in the full 
vigour of life, broader across the chest and shoulders than he had 
ever been before, despatched a courteous reply, and followed it in 
person. Travelling through all that extent of country after three 
years of Peace, he blessed the better days on which the world had 
fallen. The corn was golden, not drenched in unnatural red ; was 
bound in sheaves for food, not trodden underfoot by men in mortal 
fight. The smoke rose up from peaceful hearths, not blazing ruins. 
The carts were laden with the fair fruits of the earth, not with 
wounds and death. To him who had so often seen the terrible 
reverse, these things were beautiful indeed ; and they brought him 
in a softened spirit to the old chateau near Aix upon a deep blue 
evening. 

It w^as a large chateau of the genuine old ghostly kind, with 
round towers, and extinguishers, and a high leaden roof, and more 
windows than Aladdin's Palace. The lattice blinds were all 
thrown open after the heat of the day, and there were glimpses of 
rambling walls and corridors within. Then there were immense 
out-buildings fallen into partial decay, masses of dark trees, terrace- 
gardens, balustrades ; tanks of water, too weak to play and too 
dirty to work; statues, w^eeds, and thickets of iron railing that 
seemed to have overgrown themselves like the shrubberies, and to 
have branched out in all manner of wild shapes. The entrance 
doors stood open, as doors often do in that country when the heat 
of the day is past ; and the Captain saw no bell or knocker, and 
walked in. 



46 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 

He walked into a lofty stone hall, refreshingly cool and gloomy 
after the glare of a Southern day's travel. Extending along the 
four sides of this hall was a gallery, leading to suites of rooms; 
and it was lighted from the top. Still no bell was to be seen. 

"Faith," said the Captain halting, ashamed of the clanking of 
his boots, " this is a ghostly beginning ! " 

He started back, and felt his face turn white. In the gallery, 
looking down at him, stood the French officer — the officer whose 
picture he had carried in his mind so long and so far. Compared 
with the original, at last — in every lineament how like it was ! 

He moved, and disappeared, and Captain Richard Doubledick 
heard his steps coming quickly down into the hall. He entered 
through an archway. There was a bright, sudden look upon his 
face, much such a look as it had worn in that fatal moment. 

Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick ? Enchanted to re- 
ceive him ! A thousand apologies ! The servants were all out in 
the air. There was a little fete among them in the garden. In 
effect, it was the fete day of my daughter, the little cherished and 
protected of Madame Taunton. 

He was so gracious and so frank that Monsieur le Capitaine 
Richard Doubledick could not withhold his hand. " It is the hand 
of a brave Englishman," said the French officer, retaining it while 
he spoke. " I could respect a brave Englishman, even as my foe, 
how much more as my friend ! I also am a soldier." 

"He has not remembered me, as I have remembered him; 
he did not take such note of my face, that day, as I took of 
his, "-thought Captain Richard Doubledick. "How shall I tell 
him?" 

The French officer conducted his guest into a garden and pre- 
sented him to his wife, an engaging and beautiful woman, sitting 
with Mrs. Taunton in a whimsical old-fashioned pavilion. His 
daughter, her fair young face beaming with joy, came running to 
embrace him ; and there was a boy-baby to tumble down among 
the orange trees on the broad steps, in making for his father's legs. 
A multitude of children visitors were dancing to sprightly music ; 
and all the servants and peasants about the chateau were dancing 
too. It was a scene of innocent happiness that might have been 
invented for the climax of the scenes of peace which had soothed 
the Captain's journey. 

He looked on, greatly troubled in his mind, until a resounding 
bell rang, and the French officer begged to show him his rooms. 
They went up-stairs into the gallery from which the officer had 
looked down ; and Monsieur le Capitaine Richard Doubledick Avas 
cordially welcomed to a grand outer chamber, and a smaller one 



THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 47 

within, all clocks and draperies, and hearths, and brazen dogs, and 
tiles, and cool devices, and elegance, and vastness. 

"You were at Waterloo," said the French officer. 

"I was," said Captain Richard Doubledick. "And at Badajos." 

Left alone with the sound of his own stern voice in his ears, he 
sat down to consider, What shall I do, and how shall I tell him 1 
At that time, unhappily, many deplorable duels had been fought 
between English and French officers, arising out of the recent war ; 
and these duels, and how to avoid this officer's hospitality, were the 
uppermost thought in Captain Richard Doubledick's mind. 

He was thinking, and letting the time run out in which he 
should have dressed for dinner, when Mrs. Taujiton spoke to him 
outside the door, asking if he could give her the letter he had 
brought from Mary. "His mother, above all," the Captain 
thought. "How shall I tell her?'' 

"You will form a friendship with your host, I hope," said Mrs. 
Taunton, whom he hurriedly admitted, "that will last for life. 
He is so true-hearted and so generous, Richard, that you can 
hardly fail to esteem one another. If He had been spared," she 
kissed (not without tears) the locket in which she wore his hair, 
" he would have appreciated him with his own magnanimity, and 
would have been truly happy that the evil days were past which 
made such a man his enemy." 

She left the room ; and the Captain walked, first to one window, 
whence he could see the dancing in the garden, then to another 
window, whence he could see the smiling prospect and the peaceful 
vineyards. 

"Spirit of my departed friend," said he, "is it through thee 
these better thoughts are rising in my mind ? Is it thou who hast 
shown me, all the way I have been drawn to meet this man, the 
blessings of the altered time 1 Is it thou who has sent thy stricken 
mother to me, to stay my angry hand 1 Is it from thee the whis- 
per comes, that this man did his duty as thou didst, — and as I 
did, through thy guidance, which has wholly saved me here on 
earth, — and that he did no more 1 " 

He sat down, with his head buried in his hands, and, when he 
rose up, made the second strong resolution of his life, — that 
neither to the French officer, nor to the mother of his departed 
friend, nor to any soul, while either of the two was living, would 
he breathe what only he knew. And when he touched that French 
officer's glass with his own, that day at dinner, he secretly forgave 
him in the name of the Divine Forgiver of injuries. 

Here I ended my story as the first Poor Traveller. But, if I 



48 THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 

had told it now, I could have added that the time has since come 
when the son of Major Richard Doubledick, and the son of that 
French oflQcer, friends as their fathers were before them, fought 
side by side in one cause, with their respective nations, like long- 
divided brothers whom the better times have brought together, 
fast united. 



Chapter II. 

THE ROAD. 

My story being finished, and the Wassail too, we broke up as the 
Cathedral bell struck Twelve. I did not take leave of my Travel- 
lers that night ; for it had come into my head to reappear, in con- 
junction with some hot coffee, at seven in the morning. 

As I passed along the High-street, I heard the Waits at a dis- 
tance, and struck off to find them. They were playing near one 
of the old gates of the City, at the corner of a wonderfully quaint 
row of red-brick tenements, which the clarionet obligingly informed 
me were inhabited by the Minor-Canons. They had odd little 
porches over the doors, like sounding-boards over old pulpits ; and 
I thought I should like to see one of the Minor-Canons come out 
upon his top step, and favour us with a little Christmas discourse 
about the poor scholars of Rochester ; taking for his text the words 
of his Master relative to the devouring of Widows' houses. 

The clarionet was so communicative, and my inclinations were 
(as they generally are) of so vagabond a tendency, that I accom- 
panied the Waits across an open green called the Vines, and as- 
sisted — in the French sense — at the performance of two waltzes, 
two polkas, and three Irish melodies, before I thought of my inn 
any more. However, I returned to it then, and found a fiddle in 
the kitchen, and Ben, the wall-eyed young man, and two chamber- 
maids, circling round the great deal table with the utmost anima- 
tion. 

I had a very bad night. It cannot have been owing to the 
turkey or the beef, — and the Wassail is out of the question, — 
but in every endeavour that I made to get to sleep I failed most 
dismally. I was never asleep ; and in whatsoever unreasonable 
direction my mind rambled, the eflfigy of Master Richard Watts 
perpetually embarrassed it. 

In a word, I only got out of the Worshipful Master Richard 
Watts's way by getting out of bed in the dark at six o'clock, and 
tumbling, as my custom is, into all the cold water that could be 
accumulated for the purpose. The outer air was dull and cold 



THE SEVEN POOR TRAVELLERS. 49 

enough in the street, when I came down there ; and the one can- 
dle in our supper-room at Watts's Charity looked as pale in the 
burning as if it had had a bad night too. But my Travellers 
had all slept soundly, and they took to the hot coffee, and the 
piles of bread-and-butter, which Ben had arranged like deals in a 
timber-yard, as kindly as I could desire. 

While it was yet scarcely daylight, w^e all came out into the 
street together, and there shook hands. The widow took the little 
sailor towards Chatham, where he was to find a steamboat for 
Sheerness ; the lawyer, with an extremely knowing look, went his 
own way, without committing himself by announcing his intentions ; 
two more struck off by the cathedral and old castle for Maidstone ; 
and the Book-Pedler accompanied me over the bridge. As for me, 
I was going to walk by Cobham Woods, as far upon my way to 
London as I fancied. 

When I came to the stile and footpath by which I was to di- 
verge from the main road, I bade farewell to my last remaining 
Poor Traveller, and pursued my way alone. And now the mists 
began to rise in the most beautiful manner, and the sun to shine ; 
and as I went on through the bracing air, seeing the hoar-frost 
sparkle everywhere, I felt as if all Nature shared in the joy of 
the great Birthday. 

Going through the woods, the softness of my tread upon the 
mossy ground and among the brown leaves enhanced the Christmas 
sacredness by which I felt surrounded. As the whitened stems 
environed me, I thought how the Founder of the time had never 
raised his benignant hand, save to bless and h^al, except in the 
case of one unconscious tree. By Cobham Hall, I came to the 
village, and the churchyard where the dead had been quietly bur- 
ied, "in the sure and certain hope" which Christmas time inspired. 
What children could I see at play, and not be loving of, recalling 
who had loved them ! No garden that I passed was out of unison 
with the day, for I remembered that the tomb was in a garden, and 
that " she, supposing him to be the gardener," had said, '' Sir, if 
thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and 
I will take him away." In time, the distant river with the ships 
came full in view, and with it pictures of the poor fishermen, mend- 
ing their nets, who arose and followed him, — of the teaching of 
the people from a ship pushed oft" a little way from shore, by 
reason of the multitude, — of a majestic figure walking on the 
water, in the loneliness of night. My very shadow on the ground 
was eloquent of Christmas ; for did not the people lay their sick 
where the mere shadows of the men who had heard and seen him 
might fall as they passed along 1 



50 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

Thus Christmas begirt me, far and near, until I liad come to 
Blackheath, and had walked down the long vista of gnarled dd 
frees in Gr;enwich Park, and was being steam-rattled through the 
mists now closing in once more, towards the hghts of London 
.Brightly they shone, but not so brightly as rny own fire and he 
bri4ter faces around it, when we came together to celebrate the 
dly And there I told of worthy Master Richard Watts, and of 
mj'supper with the six Poor Travellers who were neither Rogues 
nor Proctors, and from that hour to this I have never seen one ot 
them again. 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 

IN THREE CHAPTERS. 

Chapter I. 

THE GUEST. 



I HAVE kept one secret in the course of my life. I am a bash- 
ful man. Nobody would suppose it, nobody ever does suppose it, 
nobody ever did suppose it, but I am naturally a bashlul man. 
This is the secret which I have never breathed until now. 

I mio-ht greatly move the reader by some account of the innu- 
merable places I have not been to, the innumerable people I have 
not called upon or received, the innumerable social evasions 1 have 
been o-uilty of, selely because I am by original constitution and 
character a bashful man. But I will leave the reader unmoved, 
and proceed with the object before me. , , v 

That object is to give a plain account of my travels and dis- 
coveries in the Holly-Tree Inn ; in which place of good entertain- 
ment for man and beast I was once snowed up. 

It happened in the memorable year when I parted for ever from 
Angela Leath, whom I was shortly to have married, on making the 
discovery that she preferred my bosom friend. From our school^ 
days I had freely admitted Edwin, in my own mmd, to be lar 
superior to myself; and, though I was grievously wounded at heart, 
I felt the preference to be natural, and tried to forgive tliem both. 
It was under these circumstances that I resolved to go to America 
— on my way to the Devil. ^ x^ i • 

Communicating my discovery neither to Angela nor to Edwin, 
but resolving to write each of them an affecting letter conveying 
my blessing and forgiveness, which the steam-tender for shore should 
carry to the post when I myself should be bound for the New 




THE HOLLY TREE. 



52 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

World, far beyond recall, — I say, locking up my grief in my own 
breast, and consoling myself as I could with the prospect of being 
generous, I quietly left all I held dear, and started on the desolate 
journey I have mentioned. 

The dead winter- time was in full dreariness when I left my 
chambers for ever, at five o'clock in the morning. I had shaved 
by candle-light, of course, and was miserably cold, and experienced 
that general all-pervading sensation of getting up to be hanged 
which I have usually found inseparable from untimely rising under 
such circumstances. 

How well I remember the forlorn aspect of Fleet-street when I 
came out of the Temple ! The street-lamps flickering in the gusty 
north-east wind, as if the very gas were contorted with cold ; the 
white-topped houses; the bleak, star-lighted sky; the market people 
and other early stragglers, trotting to circulate their almost frozen 
blood ; the hospitable light and warmth of the few coffee-shops and 
public-houses that were open for such customers ; the hard, dry, frosty 
rime with which the air was charged (the wind had already beaten 
it into every crevice), and which lashed my face like a steel whip. 

It wanted nine days to the end of the month, and end of the 
year. The Post-office packet for the United States was to depart 
from Liverpool, weather permitting, on the first of the ensuing 
month, and I had the intervening time on my hands. I had taken 
this into consideration, and had resolved to make a visit to a cer- 
tain spot (which I need not name) on the farther borders of York- 
shire. It was endeared to me by my having first seen Angela at 
a farm-house in that place, and my melancholy was gratified by the 
idea of taking a wintry leave of it before my expatriation. I ought 
to explain, that, to avoid being sought out before my resolution 
should have been rendered irrevocable by being carried into full 
effect, I had written to Angela overnight, in my usual manner, 
lamenting that urgent business, of which she should know all par- 
ticulars by-and-bye — took me unexpectedly away from her for a 
week or ten days. 

There was no Northern Railway at that time, and in its place 
there were stage-coaches ; which I occasionally find myself, in com- 
mon with some other people, affecting to lament now, but which 
everybody dreaded as a very serious penance then. I had secured 
the box-seat on the fastest of these, and my business in Fleet-street 
was to get into a cab with my portmanteau, so to make the best 
of my way to the Peacock at Islington, where I was to join this 
coach. But when one of our Temple watchmen, who carried my 
portmanteau into Fleet-street for me, told me about the huge blocks 
pf ice that had for some days past been floating in the river, having 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 53 

closed up in the night, and made a walk from the Temple Gardens 
over to the Surrey shore, I began to ask myself the question, whether 
the box-seat would not be likely to put a sudden and a frosty end 
to my unhappiness. I was heart-broken, it is true, and yet I was 
not quite so far gone as to wish to be frozen to death. 

When I got up to the Peacock, — where I found everybody 
drinking hot purl, in self-preservation, — I asked if there were an 
inside seat to spare. I then discovered that, inside or out, I was 
the only passenger. This gave me a still livelier idea of the great 
inclemency of the weather, since that coach always loaded particu- 
larly well. However, I took a little purl (which I found uncom- 
monly good), and got into the coach. When„I was seated, they 
built me up with straw to the waist, and, conscious of making a 
rather ridiculous appearance, I began my journey. 

It was still dark when we left the Peacock. For a little while, 
pale, uncertain ghosts of houses and trees appeared and vanished, 
and then it was hard, black, frozen day. People were lighting 
their fires ; smoke was mounting straight up high into the rarefied 
air; and we were rattling for Highgate Archway over the hardest 
ground I have ever heard the ring of iron shoes on. As we got 
into the country, everything seemed to have grown old and grey. 
The roads, the trees, thatched roofs of cottages and homesteads, 
the ricks in farmers' yards. Out-door work was abandoned, horse- 
troughs at roadside inns were frozen hard, no stragglers lounged 
about, doors were close shut, little turnpike houses had blazing 
fires inside, and children (even turnpike people have children, and 
seem to like them) rubbed the frost from the little panes of glass 
with their chubby arms, that their bright eyes might catch a 
glimpse of the solitary coach going by. I don't know when the 
snow began to set in ; but I know that we were changing horses 
somewhere when I heard the guard remark, " That the old lady 
up in the sky was picking her geese pretty hard to-day." Then, 
indeed, I found the white down falling fast and thick. 

The lonely day wore on, and I dozed it out, as a lonely traveller 
does. I was warm and valiant after eating and drinking, — par- 
ticularly after dinner ; cold and depressed at all other times. I was 
always bewildered as to time and place, and always more or less out 
of my senses. The coach and horses seemed to execute in chorus 
Auld Lang Syne, without a moment's intermission. They kept the 
time and tune with the greatest regularity, and rose into the swell 
at the beginning of the Refrain, with a precision that worried me to 
death. While we changed horses, the guard and coachman went 
stumping up and down the road, printing off their shoes in the 
snow, and poured so much liquid consolation into themselves with- 



54 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

out being any the worse for it, that I began to confound them, as it 
darkened again, with two great white casks standing on end. Our 
horses tumbled down in solitary places, and we got them up, — 
which was the pleasantest variety I had, for it warmed me. And 
it snowed and snowed, and still it snowed, and never left off snow- 
ing. All night long we went on in this manner. Thus we came 
round the clock, upon the Great North Road, to the performance of 
Auld Lang Syne by day again. And it snowed and snowed, and 
still it snowed, and never left off snowing. 

I forget now where we were at noon on the second day, and where 
we ought to have been ; but I know that we were scores of miles 
behindhand, and that our case was growing worse every hour. The 
drift was becoming prodigiously deep ; landmarks were getting snowed 
out ; the road and the fields were all one ; instead of having fences 
and hedge-rows to guide us, we went crunching on over an unbroken 
surface of ghastly white that might sink beneath us at any moment 
and drop us down a whole hillside. Still the coachman and guard 
— who kept together on the box, always in council, and looking 
well about them — made out the track with astonishing sagacity. 

When we came in sight of a town, it looked, to my fancy, like a 
large drawing on a slate, with abundance of slate-pencil expended 
on the churches and houses where the snow lay thickest. When 
we came within a town, and found the church clocks all stopped, 
the dial-faces choked with snow, and the inn-signs blotted out, it 
seemed as if the whole place were overgrown with white moss. As 
to the coach, it was a mere snowball ; similarly, the men and boys 
who ran along beside us to the town's end, turning our clogged 
wheels and encouraging our horses, were men and boys of snow ; 
and the bleak wild solitude to which they at last dismissed us was 
a snowy Sahara. One would have thought this enough : notwith- 
standing which, I pledge my word that it snowed and snowed, and 
still it snowed, and never left off snowing. 

We performed Auld Lang Syne the whole day ; seeing nothing, 
out of towns and villages, but the track of stoats, hares, and foxes, 
and sometimes of birds. At nine o'clock at night, on a Yorkshire 
moor, a cheerful burst from our horn, and a welcome sound of talk- 
ing, with a glimmering and moving about of lanterns, roused me 
from my drowsy state. I found that we were going to change. 

They helped me out, and I said to a waiter, whose bare head be- 
came as white as King Lear's in a single minute, " What Inn is this ? " 

"The Holly-Tree, sir," said he. 

"Upon my word, I believe," said I, apologetically, to the guard 
and coachman, "that I must stop here." 

Now the landlord, and the landlady, and the ostler, and the post- 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 55 

boy, and all the stable authorities, had already asked the coachman, 
to the wide-eyed interest of all the rest of the establishment, if he 
meant to go on. The coachman liad already replied, "Yes, he'd 
take her through it," — meaning by Her the coach, — "if so be as 
George would stand by him." George was the guard, and he had 
already sworn that he ivould stand by him. So the helpers were 
already getting the horses out. 

My declaring myself beaten, after this parley, was not an announce- 
ment without preparation. Indeed, but for the way to the announce- 
ment being smoothed by the parley, I more than doubt whether, 
as an innately bashful man, I should have had the confidence to 
make it. As it was, it received the approval even of the guard 
and coachman. Therefore, with many confirmations of my inclin- 
ing, and many remarks from one bystander to another, that the gen- 
tleman could go for'ard by the mail to-morrow, whereas to-night he 
would only be froze, and where was the good of a gentleman being 
froze, — ah, let alone buried alive (which latter clause was added 
by a humorous helper as a joke at my expense, and was extremely 
well received), I saw my portmanteau got out stiff*, like a frozen 
body ; did the handsome thing by the guard and coachman ; wished 
them good night and a prosperous journey ; and, a little ashamed 
of myself, after all, for leaving them to fight it out alone, followed 
the landlord, landlady, and waiter of the Holly-Tree up-stairs. 

I thought I had never seen such a large room as that into which 
they showed me. It had five windows, with dark red curtains 
that would have absorbed the light of a general illumination ; and 
there were complications of drapery at the top of the curtains, that 
went wandering about the wall in a most extraordinary manner. I 
asked for a smaller room, and they told me there was no smaller 
room. They could screen me in, however, the landlord said. They 
brought a great old japanned screen, with natives (Japanese, I sup- 
pose) engaged in a variety of idiotic pursuits all over it ; and left 
me roasting whole before an immense fire. 

My bedroom was some quarter of a mile off, up a great staircase 
at the end of a long gallery ; and nobody knows what a misery this 
is to a bashful man who would rather not meet people on the stairs. 
It was the grimmest room I have ever had the nightmare in ; and 
all the furniture, from the four posts of the bed to the two old 
silver candlesticks, was tall, high-shouldered, and spindle-waisted. 
Below, in my sitting-room, if I looked round my screen, the wind 
rushed at me like a mad bull ; if I stuck to my arm-chair, the fire 
scorched me to the colour of a new brick. The chimney-piece was 
very high, and there was a bad glass — what I may call a wavy 
glass — above it, which, when I stood up, just showed me my an- 



66 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

terior phrenological developments, — and these never look well, in 
any subject, cut short off at the eyebrow. If I stood with my back 
to the fire, a gloomy vault of darkness above and beyond the screen 
insisted on being looked at ; and, in its dim remoteness, the drapery 
of the ten curtains of the five windows w^ent twisting and creeping 
about, like a nest of gigantic worms. 

I suppose that what I observe in myself must be observed by some 
other men of similar character in themselves ; therefore I am embold- 
ened to mention, that, when I travel, I never arrive at a place but 
I immediately want to go away from it. Before I had finished my 
supper of broiled fowl and mulled port, I had impressed upon the 
w^aiter in detail my arrangements for departure in the morning. 
Breakfast and bill at eight. Fly at nine. Two horses, or, if need- 
ful; even four. 

Tired though I was, the night appeared about a week long. In 
oases of nightmare, I thought of Angela, and felt more depressed 
than ever by the reflection that I was on the shortest road to Gretna 
Green. AVhat had / to do with Gretna Green ? I was not going 
that way to the Devil, but by the American route, I remarked in 
my bitterness. 

In the morning I found that it was snowing still, that it had 
snowed all night, and that I was snowed up. Nothing could get 
out of that spot on the moor, or could come at it, until the road 
had been cut out by labourers from the market-town. When they 
might cut their way to the Holly-Tree nobody could tell me. 

It was now Christmas-eve. I should have had a dismal Christ- 
mas-time of it anywhere, and consequently that did not so much 
matter ; still, being snowed up was like dying of frost, a thing I 
had not bargained for. I felt very lonely. Yet I could no more 
have proposed to the landlord and landlady to admit me to their 
society (though I should have liked it very much) than I could 
have asked them to present me with a piece of plate. Here my 
great secret, the real bashfulness of my character, is to be observed. 
Like most bashful men, I judge of other people as if they were 
bashful too. Besides being far too shamefaced to make the pro- 
posal myself, I really had a delicate misgiving that it would be in 
the last degree disconcerting to them. 

Trying to settle down, therefore, in my solitude, I first of all 
asked what books there were in the house. The w^aiter brought 
me a Booh of Roads, two or three old Newspapers, a little Song- 
Book, terminating in a collection of Toasts and Sentiments, a little 
Jest-Book, an odd volume of Peregrine Pichle, and the Senti- 
mental Journey. I knew every word of the two last already, but 
I read them through again, then tried to hum all the songs (Auld 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 57 

Lang Syne was among them) ; went entirely through the jokes, — 
in which I found a fund of melancholy adapted to my state of 
mind ; proposed all the toasts, enunciated all the sentiments, and 
mastered the papers. The latter had nothing in them but stock 
advertisements, a meeting about a county rate, and a highway 
robbery. As I am a greedy reader, I could not make this supply 
hold out until night ; it was exhausted by tea-time. Being then 
entirely cast upon my own resources, I got through an hour in con- 
sidering what to do next. Ultimately, it came into my head (from 
which I was anxious by any means to exclude Angela and Edwin), 
that I would endeavour to recall my experience of Inns, and would 
try how long it lasted me. I stirred the firq, moved my chair a 
little to one side of the screen, — not daring to go far, for I knew 
the wind was waiting to make a rush at me, I could hear it growl- 
ing, — and began. 

My first impressions of an Inn dated from the Nursery ; conse- 
quently I went back to the Nursery for a starting-point, and found 
myself at the knee of a sallow woman with a fishy eye, an aquiline 
nose, and a green gown, whose specialty was a dismal narrative of 
a landlord by the roadside, whose visitors unaccountably disap- 
peared for many years, until it was discovered that the pursuit of 
his life had been to convert them into pies. For the better devo- 
tion of himself to this branch of industry, he had constructed a 
secret door behind the head of the bed ; and when the visitor (op- 
pressed with pie) had fallen asleep, this wicked landlord would look 
softly in with a lamp in one hand and a knife in the other, would 
cut his throat, and would make him into pies ; for which purpose 
he had coppers, underneath a trap-door, always boiling ; and rolled 
out his pastry in the dead of the night. Yet even he was not in- 
sensible to the stings of conscience, for he never went to sleep 
without being heard to mutter, " Too much pepper ! " which was 
eventually the cause of his being brought to justice. I had no 
sooner disposed of this criminal than there started up another of 
the same period, whose profession was originally housebreaking ; in 
the pursuit of which art he had had his right ear chopped off one 
night, as he was burglariously getting in at a window, by a brave 
and lovely servant-maid (whom the aquiline-nosed woman, though 
not at all answering the description, always mysteriously implied to 
be herself). After several years, this brave and lovely servant-maid 
was married to the landlord of a country Inn ; which landlord had 
this remarkable characteristic, that he always wore a silk nightcap, 
and never would on any consideration take it off. At last, one 
night, when he was fast asleep, the brave and lovely woman lifted 
up his silk nightcap on the right side, and found that he had no 



68 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

ear there ; upon which she sagaciously perceived that he was the 
clipped housebreaker, who had married her with the intention of 
putting her to death. She immediately heated the poker and 
t-erminated his career, for which she was taken to King George 
upon his throne, and received the compliments of royalty on her 
great discretion and valour. This same narrator, who had a Ghoul- 
ish pleasure, I have long been persuaded, in terrifying me to the 
utmost confines of my reason, had another authentic anecdote 
within her own experience, founded, I now believe, upon Raymond 
and Agnes, or the Bleeding Kun. She said it happened to her 
brother-in-law, who was immensely rich, — which my father was 
not ; and immensely tall, — which my father was not. It was al- 
ways a point with this Ghoul to present my dearest relations and 
friends to my youthful mind under circumstances of disparaging 
contrast. The brother-in-law was riding once through a forest on 
a magnificent horse (we had no magnificent horse at our house), 
attended by a favourite and valuable Newfoundland dog (we had 
no dog), when he found himself benighted, and came to an Inn. 
A dark woman opened the door, and he asked her if he could have 
a bed there. She answered yes, and put his horse in the stable, 
and took him into a room where there were two dark men. While 
he was at supper, a parrot in the room began to talk, saying, 
" Blood, blood ! Wipe up the blood ! " Upon which one of the 
dark men wrung the parrot's neck, and said he was fond of roasted 
parrots, and he meant to have this one for breakfast in the morn- 
ing. After eating and drinking heartily, the immensely rich, tall 
brother-in-law went up to bed ; but he was rather vexed, because 
they had shut his dog in the stable, saying that they never allowed 
dogs in the house. He sat very quiet for more than an hour, think- 
ing and thinking, when, just as his candle was burning out, he 
heard a scratch at the door. He opened the door, and there was 
the Newfoundland dog ! The dog came softly in, smelt about him, 
went straight to some straw in the corner which the dark men had 
said covered apples, tore the straw away, and disclosed two sheets 
steeped in blood. Just at that moment the candle went out, and 
the brother-in-law^, looking through a chink in the door, saw the 
two dark men stealing up-stairs ; one armed with a dagger that 
long (about five feet) ; the other carrying a chopper, a sack, and a 
spade. Having no remembrance of the close of this adventure, I 
suppose my faculties to have been always so frozen with terror at 
this stage of it, that the power of listening stagnated within me 
for some quarter of an hour. 

These barbarous stories carried me, sitting there on the Holly- 
Tree hearth, to the Roadside Inn, renowned in my time in a 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 59 

sixpenny book with a folding plate, representing in a central com- 
partment of oval form the portrait of Jonathan Bradford, and in 
four corner compartments four incidents of the tragedy with which 
the name is associated, — coloured with a hand at once so free and 
economical, that the bloom of Jonathan's complexion passed with- 
out any pause into the breeches of the ostler, and, smearing itself 
off into the next division, became rum in a bottle. Then I remem- 
bered how the landlord was found at the murdered traveller's 
bedside, with his own knife at his feet, and blood upon his hand ; 
how he was hanged for the murder, notwithstanding his protesta- 
tion that he had indeed come there to kill the traveller for his 
saddle-bags, but had been stricken motionkss on finding him 
already slain; and how the ostler, years afterwards, owned the 
deed. By this time I had made myself quite uncomfortable. I 
stirred the fire, and stood with my back to it as long as I could 
bear the heat, looking up at the darkness beyond the screen, and 
at the wormy curtains creeping in and creeping out, like the worms 
in the ballad of Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene. 

There was an Inn in the cathedral town where I went to school, 
which had pleasanter recollections about it than any of these. I 
took it next. It was the Inn where friends used to put up, and 
where we used to go to see parents, and to have salmon and fouls, 
and be tipped. It had an ecclesiastical sign, — the Mitre, — and 
a bar that seemed to be the next best thing to a bishopric, it was 
so snug. I loved the landlord's youngest daughter to distraction, 
— but let that pass. It was in this Inn that I was cried over by 
my rosy little sister, because I had acquired a black eye in a fight. 
And though she had been, that Holly-Tree night, for many a long 
year where all tears are dried, the Mitre softened me yet. 

"To be continued to-morrow," said I, when I took my candle to 
go to bed. But my bed took it upon itself to continue the train 
of thought that night. It carried me away, like the enchanted 
carpet, to a distant place (though still in England), and there, 
alighting from a stage-coach at another Inn in the snow, as I had 
actually done some years before, I repeated in my sleep a curious 
experience I had really had there. More than a year before I 
made the journey in the course of which I put up at that Inn, I 
had lost a very near and dear friend by death. Every night since, 
at home or away from home, I had dreamed of that friend ; some- 
times as still living; sometimes as returning from the world of 
shadows to comfort me ; always as being beautiful, placid, and 
happy, never in association with any approach to fear or distress. 
It was at a lonely Inn in a wide moorland place, that I halted to 
pass the night. When I had looked from my bedroom window 



60 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

over the waste of snow on which the moon was shining, I sat down 
by my fire to write a letter. I had always, until that hour, kept 
it within my own breast that I dreamed every night of the dear 
lost one. But in the letter that I wrote I recorded the circum- 
stance, and added that I felt much interested in proving whether 
the subject of my dream would still be faithful to me, travel-tired, 
and in that remote place. No. I lost the beloved figure of my 
vision in parting with the secret. My sleep has never looked upon 
it since, in sixteen years, but once. I was in Italy, and awoke (or 
seemed to awake), the well-remembered voice distinctly in my ears, 
conversing with it. I entreated it, as it rose above my bed and 
soared up to the vaulted roof of the old room, to answer me a 
question I had asked touching the Future Life. My hands were 
still outstretched towards it as it vanished, when I heard a bell 
ringing by the garden wall, and a voice in the deep stillness of the 
night calling on all good Christians to pray for the souls of the 
dead ; it being All Souls' Eve. 

To return to the Holly-Tree. When I awoke next day, it was 
freezing hard, and the lowering sky threatened more snow. My 
breakfast cleared away, I drew my chair into its former place, and, 
with the fire getting so much the better of the landscape that I 
sat in twilight, resumed my Inn remembrances. 

That was a good Inn down in Wiltshire where I put up once, 
in the days of the hard Wiltshire ale, and before all beer was 
bitterness. It was on the skirts of Salisbury Plain, and the mid- 
night wind that rattled my lattice window came moaning at me 
from Stonehenge. There was a hanger-on at that establishment (a 
supernaturally preserved Druid I believe him to have been, and to 
be still), with long white hair, and a flinty blue eye always looking 
afar off" ; who claimed to have been a shepherd, and who seemed to 
be ever watching for the reappearance, on the verge of the horizon, 
of some ghostly flock of sheep that had been mutton for many ages. 
He was a man with a weird belief in him that no one could count 
the stones of Stonehenge twice, and make the same number of 
them ; likewise, that any one who counted them three times nine 
times, and then stood in the centre and said, " I dare ! " would 
behold a tremendous apparition, and be stricken dead. He pre- 
tended to have seen a bustard (I suspect him to have been famil- 
iar with the dodo), in manner following : He was out upon the 
plain at the close of a late autumn day, when he dimly discerned, 
going on before him at a curious fitfully bounding pace, what he at 
first supposed to be a gig-umbrella that had been blown from some 
conveyance, but what he presently believed to be a lean dwarf man 
upon a little pony. Having followed this object for some distance 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 61 

without gaining on it, and having called to it many times without 
receiving any answer, he pursued it for miles and miles, when, at 
length coming up with it, he discovered it to be the last bustard in 
Great Britain, degenerated into a wingless state, and running along 
the ground. Resolved to capture him or perish in the attempt, he 
closed with the bustard ; but the bustard, who had formed a coun- 
ter-resolution that he should do neither, threw him, stunned him, 
and was last seen making off due west. This weird man, at that 
stage of metempsychosis, may have been a sleep-walker or an en- 
thusiast or a robber ; but I awoke one night to find him in the 
dark at my bedside, repeating the Athanasian Creed in a terrific 
voice. I paid my bill next day, and retired fram the county with 
all possible precipitation. 

That was not a commonplace story which worked itself out at a 
little Inn in Switzerland, while I was staying there. It was a 
very homely place, in a village of one narrow zigzag street, among 
mountains, and you went in at the main door through the cow- 
house, and among the mules and the dogs and the fowls, before 
ascending a great bare staircase to the rooms ; which were all of 
unpainted wood, without plastering or papering, — like rough 
packing-cases. Outside there was nothing but the straggling street, 
a little toy church with a copper-coloured steeple, a pine forest, a 
torrent, mists, and mountain-sides. A young man belonging to 
this Inn had disappeared eight weeks before (it was winter-time), 
and was supposed to have had some undiscovered love affair, and 
to have gone for a soldier. He had got up in the night, and 
dropped into the village street from the loft in which he slept with 
another man ; and he had done it so quietly, that his companion 
and fellow-labourer had heard no movement when he was awakened 
in the morning, and they said, "Louis, where is Henri?" They 
looked for him high and low, in vain, and gave him up. Now, 
outside this Inn, there stood, as there stood outside every dwelling 
in the village, a stack of firewood ; but the stack belonging to the 
Inn was higher than any of the rest, because the Inn was the rich- 
est house, and burnt the most fuel. It began to be noticed, while 
they were looking high and low, that a Bantam cock, part of the 
live-stock of the Inn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get 
to the top of this wood-stack ; and that he would stay there for 
hours and hours, crowing, until he appeared in danger of splitting 
himself. Five weeks went on, — six weeks, — and still this ter- 
rible Bantam, neglecting his domestic affairs, was always on the 
top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes out of his head. By 
this time it was perceived that Louis had become inspired with a 
violent animosity towards the terrible Bantam, and one morning 



62 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

he was seen by a woman, who sat nursing her goitre at a little 
window in a gleam of sun, to catch up a rough billet of wood, with 
a great oath, hurl it at the terrible Bantam crowing on the wood- 
stack, and bring him down dead. Hereupon the woman, with a 
sudden light in her mind, stole round to the back of the wood- 
stack, and, being a good climber, as all those women are, climbed 
up, and soon was seen upon the summit, screaming, looking down 
the hollow within, and crying, " Seize Louis, the murderer ! Ring 
the church bell ! Here is the body ! " I saw the murderer that 
day, and I saw him as I sat by my fire at the Holly-Tree Inn, and 
I see him now, lying shackled with cords on the stable litter, 
among the mild eyes and the smoking breath of the cows, waiting 
to be taken away by the police, and stared at by the fearful village. 
A heavy animal, — the dullest animal in the stables, — with a 
stupid head, and a lumpish face devoid of any trace of sensibility, 
who had been, within the knowledge of the murdered youth, an 
embezzler of certain small moneys belonging to his master, and 
who had taken this hopeful mode of putting a possible accuser out 
of his way. All of which he confessed next day, like a sulky 
wretch who couldn't be troubled any more, now that they had got 
hold of him, and meant to make an end of him. I saw him once 
again, on the day of my departure from the Inn. In that Canton 
the headsman still does his office with a sword ; and I came upon 
this murderer sitting bound to a chair, with his eyes bandaged, 
on a scaff'old in a little market-place. In that instant, a great 
sword (loaded with quicksilver in the thick part of the blade), 
swept round him like a gust of wind or fire, and there was no such 
creature in the world. My wonder was, not that he was so sud- 
denly despatched, but that any head was left unreaped, within a 
radius of fifty yards of that tremendous sickle. 

That was a good Inn, too, with the kind, cheerful landlady and 
the honest landlord, where I lived in the shadow of Mont Blanc, 
and where one of the apartments has a zoological papering on the 
walls, not so accurately joined but that the elephant occasionally 
rejoices in a tiger's hind legs and tail, while the lion puts on a 
trunk and tusks, and the bear, moulting as it were, appears as to 
portions of himself like a leopard. I made several American friends 
at that Inn, who all called Mont Blanc Mount Blank, — except one 
good-humoured gentleman, of a very sociable nature, who became 
on such intimate terms with it that he spoke of it familiarly as 
" Blank ; " observing, at breakfast, " Blank looks pretty tall this 
morning ; " or considerably doubting in the courtyard in the even- 
ing, whether there warn't some go-ahead naters in our country, sir, 
that would make out the top of Blank in a couple of hours from 
first start — now ! 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 63 

Once I passed a fortnight at an Inn in the North of England, 
where I was haunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie. It was a 
Yorkshire pie, like a fort, — an abandoned fort with nothing in it ; 
but the waiter had a fixed idea that it was a point of ceremony at 
every meal to put the pie on the table. After some days I tried 
to hint, in several delicate ways, that I considered the pie done 
with ; as, for example, by emptying fag-ends of glasses of wine into 
it ; putting cheese-plates and spoons into it, as into a basket ; put- 
ting wine-bottles into it, as into a cooler ; but always in vain, the 
pie being invariably cleaned out again and brought up as before. 
At last, beginning to be doubtful whether I w^as not the victim of 
a spectral illusion, and whether my health ami spirits might not 
sink under the horrors of an imaginary pie, I cut a triangle out of 
it, fully as large as the musical instrument of that name in a power- 
ful orchestra. Human prevision could not have foreseen the result 
— but the waiter mended the pie. With some effectual species of 
cement, he adroitly fitted the triangle in again, and I paid my 
reckoning and fled. 

The Holly-Tree was getting rather dismal. I made an overland 
expedition beyond the screen, and penetrated as far as the fourth 
window. Here I was driven back by stress of weather. Arrived 
at my winter-quarters once more, I made up the fire, and took 
another Inn. 

It was in the remotest part of Cornwall. A great annual Miners' 
Feast was being holden at the Inn, when I and my travelling com- 
panions presented ourselves at night among the wild crowd that 
were dancing before it by torchlight. We had had a break-down 
in the dark, on a stony morass some miles away ; and I had the 
honour of leading one of the unharnessed post-horses. If any lady 
or gentleman, on perusal of the present lines, will take any very 
tall post-horse wdth his traces hanging about his legs, and will con- 
duct him by the bearing-rein into the heart of a country dance of 
a hundred and fifty couples, that lady or gentleman will then, and 
only then, form an adequate idea of the extent to which that post- 
horse will tread on his conductor's toes. Over and above which, 
the post-horse, finding three hundred people whirling about him, 
will probably rear, and also lash out with his hind legs, in a man- 
ner incompatible with dignity or self-respect on his conductor's part. 
With such little drawbacks on my usually impressive aspect, I 
appeared at this Cornish Inn, to the unutterable wonder of the 
Cornish Miners. It was full, and twenty times full, and nobody 
could be received but the post-horse, — though to get rid of that 
noble animal was something. While my fellow-travellers and I 
were discussing how to pass the night and so much of the next 



64 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

day as must intervene before the jovial blacksmith and the jovial 
wheelwright would be in a condition to go out on the morass and 
mend the coach, an honest man stepped forth from the crowd 
and proposed his unlet floor of two rooms, with supper of eggs 
and bacon, ale and punch. We joyfully accompanied him home to 
the strangest of clean houses, where we were well entertained to 
the satisfaction of all parties. But the novel feature of the enter- 
tainment was, that our host was a chair-maker, and that the chairs 
assigned to us were mere frames, altogether without bottoms of any 
sort ; so that we passed the evening on perches. Nor was this the 
absurdest consequence ; for when we unbent at supper, and any one 
of us gave way to laughter, he forgot the peculiarity of his position, 
and instantly disappeared. I myself, doubled up into an attitude 
from which self-extrication was impossible, was taken out of my 
frame, like a clown in a comic pantomime who has tumbled into a 
tub, five times by the taper's light during the eggs and bacon. 

The Holly-Tree was fast reviving within me a sense of loneliness. 
I began to feel conscious that my subject would never carry on 
until I was dug out. I might be a week here, — weeks ! 

There was a story with a singular idea in it, connected with an 
Inn I once passed a night at in a picturesque old town on the Welsh 
border. In a large double-bedded room of this Inn there had been 
a suicide committed by poison, in one bed, while a tired traveller 
slept unconscious in the other. After that time, the suicide bed 
was never used, but the other constantly was ; the disused bedstead 
remaining in the room empty, though as to all other respects in its 
old state. The story ran, that whosoever slept in this room, though 
never so entire a stranger, from never so far off", was invariably ob- 
served to come down in the morning with an impression that he 
smelt Laudanum, and that his mind always turned upon the sub- 
ject of suicide ; to which, whatever kind of man he might be, he 
was certain to make some reference if he conversed with any one. 
This went on for years, until it at length induced the landlord to 
take the disused bedstead down, and bodily burn it, — bed, hang- 
ings, and all. The strange influence (this was the story) now 
changed to a fainter one, but never changed afterwards. The oc- 
cupant of that room, with occasional but very rare exceptions, 
would come down in the morning, trying to recall a forgotten 
dream he had had in the night. The landlord, on his mentioning 
his perplexity, would suggest various commonplace subjects, not 
one of which, as he very well knew, was the true subject. But 
the moment the landlord suggested " Poison," the traveller started, 
and cried, " Yes ! " He never failed to accept that suggestion, and 
he never recalled any more of the dream. 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 65 

This reminiscence brought the Welsh Inns in general before me ; 
with the women in their round hats, and the harpers with their 
white beards (venerable, but humbugs, I am afraid), playing outside 
the door while I took my dinner. The transition was natural to 
the Highland Inns, with the oatmeal bannocks, the honey, the 
venison steaks, the trout from the loch, the whisky, and perhaps 
(having the materials so temptingly at hand) the Athol brose. 
Once was I coming south from the Scottish Highlands in hot haste, 
hoping to change quickly at the station at the bottom of a certain 
wild historical glen, when these eyes did with mortification see the 
landlord come out with a telescope and sweep the whole prospect 
for the horses ; which horses were away picking up their own liv- 
ing, and did not heave in sight under four hours. Having thought 
of the loch-trout, I was taken by quick association to the Anglers' 
Inns of England (I have assisted at innumerable feats of angling 
by lying in the bottom of the boat, whole summer days, doing 
nothing with the greatest perseverance; which I have generally 
found to be as ejffectual towards the taking of fish as the finest 
tackle and the utmost science), and to the pleasant white, clean, 
flower-pot-decorated bedrooms of those Inns, overlooking the river, 
and the ferry, and the green ait, and the church-spire, and the 
country bridge ; and to the peerless Emma with the bright eyes 
and the pretty smile, who waited, bless her ! with a natural grace 
that would have converted Blue-Beard. Casting my eyes upon my 
Holly-Tree fire, I next discerned among the glowing coals the pict- 
ures of a score or more of those wonderful English posting-inns 
which we are all so sorry to have lost, which were so large and so 
comfortable, and which were such monuments of British submission 
to rapacity and extortion. He who would see these houses pining 
away, let him walk from Basingstoke, or even Windsor, to London, 
by way of Hounslow, and moralise on their perishing remains ; the 
stables crumbling to dust ; unsettled labourers and wanderers biv- 
ouacking in the outhouses ; grass growing in the yards ; the rooms, 
where erst so many hundred beds of down were made up, let off to 
Irish lodgers at eighteenpence a week ; a little ill-looking beer-shop 
shrinking in the tap of former days, burning coach-house gates for 
firewood, having one of its two windows bunged up, as if it had 
received punishment in a fight with the Railroad ; a low, bandy- 
legged, brick-making bulldog standing in the doorway. What could 
I next see in my fire so naturally as the new railway-house of these 
times near the dismal country station ; with nothing particular on 
draught but cold air and damp, nothing worth mentioning in the 
larder but new mortar, and no business doing beyond a conceited 
ajQfectation of luggage in the hall 1 Then I came to the Inns of 



66 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

Paris, with the pretty apartment of four pieces up one hundred 
and seventy-five waxed stairs, the privilege of ringing the bell all 
day long without influencing anybody's mind or body but your own, 
and the not-too-much-for-dinner, considering the price. Next to 
the provincial Inns of France, with the great church-tower rising 
above the courtyard, the horse-bells jingling merrily up and down 
the street beyond, and the clocks of all descriptions in all the 
rooms, which are never right, unless taken at the precise minute 
when, by getting exactly twelve hours too fast or too slow, they 
unintentionally become so. Away I went, next, to the lesser road- 
side Inns of Italy ; where all the dirty clothes in the house (not in 
wear) are always lying in your anteroom ; where the mosquitoes 
make a raisin pudding of your face in summer, and the cold bites 
it blue in winter ; where you get what you can, and forget what 
you can't ; where I should again like to be boiling my tea in a 
pocket-handkerchief dumpling, for want of a teapot. So to the 
old palace Inns and old monastery Inns, in towns and cities of the 
same bright country ; with their massive quadrangular staircases, 
whence you may look from among clustering pillars high into the 
blue vault of heaven ; with their stately banqueting-rooms, and 
vast refectories ; with their labyrinths of ghostly bedchambers, and 
their glimpses into gorgeous streets that have no appearance of 
reality or possibility. So to the close little Inns of the Malaria 
districts, with their pale attendants, and their peculiar smell of 
never letting in the air. So to the immense fantastic Inns of 
Venice, with the cry of the gondolier below, as he skims the cor- 
ner ; the grip of the watery odours on one particular little bit of 
the bridge of your nose (which is never released while you stay 
there) ; and the great bell of Saint Mark's Cathedral tolling mid- 
night. Next I put up for a minute at the restless Inns upon the 
Rhine, where your going to bed, no matter at what hour, appears 
to be the tocsin for everybody else's getting up ; and where, in the 
table-d'hote room at the end of the long table (with several Towers 
of Babel on it at the other end, all made of white plates), one 
knot of stoutish men, entirely dressed in jewels and dirt, and hav- 
ing nothing else upon them, ivill remain all night, clinking glasses, 
and singing about the river that flows, and the grape that grows, 
and Rhine wine that beguiles, and Rhine woman that smiles and 
hi drink drink my friend and ho drink drink my brother, and all 
the rest of it. I departed thence, as a matter of course, to other 
German Inns, where all the eatables are soddened down to the 
same flavour, and where the mind is disturbed by the apparition of 
hot puddings, and boiled cherries, sweet and slab, at awfully unex- 
pected periods of the repast. After a draught of sparkling beer 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 67 

from a foaming glass jug, and a glance of recognition through the 
windows of the student beer-houses at Heidelberg and elsewhere, I 
put out to sea for the Inns of America, with their four hundred 
beds apiece, and their eight or nine hundred ladies and gentlemen 
at dinner every day. Again I stood in the bar-rooms thereof, tak- 
ing my evening cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail. Again I listened 
to my friend the General, — whom I had known for five minutes, 
in the course of which period he had made me intimate for life 
with two Majors, who again had made me intimate for life with 
three Colonels, who again had made me brother to twenty-two 
civilians, — again, I say, I listened to my friend the General, lei- 
surely expounding the resources of the establisl]tment, as to gentle- 
men's morning-room, sir; ladies' morning-room, sir; gentlemen's 
evening-room, sir; ladies' evening-room, sir; ladies' and gentle- 
men's evening reuniting-room, sir ; music-room, sir ; reading-room, 
sir ; over four hundred sleeping-rooms, sir ; and the entire planned 
and finished within twelve calendar months from the first clearing 
off of the old encumbrances on the plot, at a cost of five hundred 
thousand dollars, sir. Again I found, as to my individual way of 
thinking, that the greater, the more gorgeous, and the more dollar- 
ous the establishment was, the less desirable it was. Nevertheless, 
again I drank my cobbler, julep, sling, or cocktail, in all good-will, 
to my friend the General, and my friends the Majors, Colonels, and 
civilians all; full well knowing that, whatever little motes my 
beamy eyes may have descried in theirs, they belong to a kind, 
generous, large-hearted, and great people. 

I had been going on lately at a quick pace to keep my solitude 
out of my mind ; but here I broke down for good, and gave up the 
subject. What was I to do ? What was to become of me 1 Into 
what extremity was I submissively to sink ? Supposing that, like 
Baron Trenck, I looked out for a mouse or spider, and found one, 
and beguiled my imprisonment by training it ? Even that might 
be dangerous with a view to the future. I might be so far gone 
when the road did come to be cut through the snow, that, on my 
way forth, I might burst into tears, and beseech, like the prisoner 
who was released in his old age from the Bastille, to be taken back 
again to the five windows, the ten curtains, and the sinuous drapery. 

A desperate idea came into my head. Under any other circum- 
stances I should have rejected it ; but, in the strait at which I was, 
I held it fast. Could I so far overcome the inherent bashfulness 
which withheld me from the landlord's table and the company I 
might find there, as to call up the Boots, and ask him to take a 
chair, — and something in a liquid form, — and talk to me 1 I 
could. I w^ould. I did. 



68 THE HOLLY-TREE. . 

Chapter II. 

THE BOOTS. 

Where had he been in his time? he repeated, when I asked 
him the question. Lord, he had been everywhere ! And what 
had he been ? Bless you, he had been everything you could men- 
tion a'most ! 

Seen a good deal 1 Why, of course he had. I should say so, 
he could assure me, if I only knew about a twentieth part of 
what had come in his way. Why, it would be easier for him, he 
expected, to tell what he hadn't seen than what he had. Ah ! A 
deal, it would. 

What was the curiousest thing he had seen ? Well ! He didn't 
know. He couldn't momently name what was the curiousest thing 
he had seen, — unless it was a Unicorn, — and he see hijn once 
at a Fair. But supposing a young gentleman not eight year old 
was to run away with a fine young woman of seven, might I think 
that a queer start 1 Certainly. Then that was a start as he him- 
self had had his blessed eyes on, and he had cleaned the shoes they 
run away in — and they was so little that he couldn't get his hand 
into 'em. 

Master Harry Walmers' ftither, you see, he Uved at the Elmses, 
down away by Shooter's Hill there, six or seven miles from Lun- 
non. He was a gentleman of spirit, and good-looking, and held 
his head up when he walked, and had what you may call Fire 
about him. He wrote poetry, and he rode, and he ran, and 
he cricketed, and he danced, and he acted, and he done it all 
equally beautiful. He was uncommon proud of Master Harry as 
was his only child ; but he didn't spoil him neither. He was a 
gentleman that had a will of his own and a eye of his own, and 
that would be minded. Consequently, though he made quite a 
companion of the fine bright boy, and was delighted to see him so 
fond of reading his fairy-books, and was never tired of hearing him 
say my name is Norval, or hearing him sing his songs about Young 
May Moons is beaming love, and When he as adores thee has left 
but the name, and that ; still he kept the command over the child, 
and the child tvas a child, and it's to be wished more of 'em was ! 

How did Boots happen to know all this 1 Why, through being 
under-gardener. Of course he couldn't be under-gardener, and be 
always about, in the summer-time, near the windows on the lawn, 
a mowing, and sweeping, and weeding, and pruning, and this and 
that, without getting acquainted with the ways of the family. 
Even supposing Master Harry hadn't come to him one morning 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 69 

early, and said, " Cobbs, how should you spell Norah, if you was 
asked ? " and then began cutting it in print all over the fence. 

He couldn't say he had taken particular notice of children before 
that ; but really it was pretty to see them two mites a going about 
the place together, deep in love. And the courage of the boy ! 
Bless your soul, he'd have throwed off his httle hat, and tucked 
up his little sleeves, and gone in at a Lion, he would, if they had 
happened to meet one, and she had been frightened of him. One 
day he stops, along with her, where Boots was hoeing weeds in the 
gravel, and says, speaking up, "Cobbs," he says, "I like yoiiy 
"Do you, sir? I'm proud to hear it." "Yes, I do, Cobbs. Why 
do I like you, do you think, Cobbs?" "Don't know. Master 
Harry, I am sure." " Because Norah likes you, Cobbs." " Indeed, 
sir? That's very gratifying." "Gratifying, Cobbs? It's better 
than millions of the brightest diamonds to be liked by Norah." 
" Certainly, sir." "You're going away, ain't you, Cobbs?" "Yes, 
sir." "Would you like another situation, Cobbs?" "Well, sir, 
I shouldn't object, if it was a good 'un." " Then, Cobbs," says he, 
"you shall be our Head Gardener when we are married." And he 
tucks her, in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks 
away. 

Boots could assure me that it was better than a picter, and equal 
to a play, to see them babies, with their long, bright, curling hair, 
their sparkling eyes, and their beautiful light tread, a rambling 
about the garden, deep in love. Boots was of opinion that the 
birds believed they was birds, and kept up with 'em, singing to 
please 'em. Sometimes they would creep under the Tulip-tree, and 
would sit there with their arms round one another's necks, and their 
soft cheeks touching, a reading about the Prince and the Dragon, 
and the good and bad enchanters, and the king's fair daughter. 
Sometimes he would hear them planning about having a house in 
a forest, keeping bees and a cow, and living entirely on milk and 
honey. Once he came upon them by the pond, and heard Master 
Harry say, "Adorable Norah, kiss me, and say you love me to 
distraction, or I'll jump in head-foremost." And Boots made no 
question he would have done it if she hadn't complied. On the 
whole. Boots said it had a tendency to make him feel as if he was 
in love himself — only he didn't exactly know who with. 

" Cobbs," said Master Harry, one evening, when Cobbs was water- 
ing the flowers, "I am going on a visit, this present Midsummer, 
to my grandmamma's at York." 

" Are you indeed, sir ? I hope you'll have a pleasant time. I 
am going into Yorkshire, myself, when I leave here." 

"Are you going to your grandmamma's, Cobbs?" 



70 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

" No, sir. I haven't got such a thing." 

" Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs ? " 

" No, sir." 

The boy looked on at the watering of the flowers for a little 
while, and then said, " I shall be very glad indeed to go, Cobbs, 
— Norah's going." 

"You'll be all right then, sir," says Cobbs, " with your beautiful 
sweetheart by your side." 

" Cobbs," returned the boy, flushing, " I never let anybody joke 
about it, when I can prevent them." 

"It wasn't a joke, sir," says Cobbs, with humility, — "wasn't 
so meant." 

"I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and 
you're going to live with us. — Cobbs ! " 

"Sir." 

" What do you think my grandmamma gives me when I go 
down there 1 " 

" I couldn't so much as make a guess, sir." 

"A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs." 

" Whew !" says Cobbs, " that's a spanking sum of money, Master 
Harry." 

"A person could do a good deal with such a sum of money as 
that, — couldn't a person, Cobbs ? " 

" I believe you, sir ! " 

"Cobbs," said the boy, "I'll tell you a secret. At Norah's 
house, they have been joking her about me, and pretending to 
laugh at our being engaged, — pretending to make game of it, 
Cobbs ! " 

"Such, sir," says Cobbs, "is the depravity of human natur." 

The boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes 
with his glowing face towards the sunset, and then departed with 
" Good night, Cobbs. I'm going in." 

If I was to ask Boots how it happened that he was a going to 
leave that place just at that present time, well, he couldn't rightly 
answer me. He did suppose he might have stayed there till now 
if he had been anyways inclined. But, you see, he was younger 
then, and he wanted change. That's what he wanted, — change. 
Mr. Walmers, he said to him when he gave him notice of his inten- 
tions to leave, " Cobbs," he says, "have you anythink to complain of? 
I make the inquiry because if I find that any of my people really 
has anythink to complain of, I wish to make it right if I can." 
"No, sir," says Cobbs; "thanking you, sir, I find myself as well 
sitiwated here as I could hope to be anywheres. The truth is, sir, 
that I'm a going to seek my fortun." " 0, indeed, Cobbs ! " he 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 71 

says ; " I hope you may find it." And Boots could assure me — 
which he did, touching his hair with his bootjack, as a sahite in the 
way of his present calling — that he hadn't found it yet. 

Well, sir ! Boots left the Elmses when his time was up, and 
Master Harry, he went down to the old lady's at York, which old 
lady would have given that child the teeth out of her head (if she 
had had any), she was so wrapped up in him. What does that 
Infant do, — for Infant you may call him and be within the mark, 
— but cut away from that old lady's with his Norah, on a expedi- 
tion to go to Gretna Green and be married ! 

Sir, Boots was at this identical Holly-Tree Inn (having left it sev- 
eral times since to better himself, but always eome back through 
one thing or another), when, one summer afternoon, the coach drives 
up, and out of the coach gets them two children. The Guard says 
to our Governor, "I don't quite make out these little passengers, 
but the young gentleman's words was that they was to be brought 
here." The young gentleman gets out ; hands his lady out; gives 
the Guard something for himself; says to our Governor, " We're 
to stop here to-night, please. Sitting-room and two bedrooms will 
be required. Chops and cherry-pudding for two ! " and tucks her, 
in her little sky-blue mantle, under his arm, and walks into the 
house much bolder than Brass. 

Boots leaves me to judge what the amazement of that establish- 
ment was, when these two tiny creatures all alone by themselves 
was marched into the Angel, — much more so, when he, who had 
seen them without their seeing him, give the Governor his views of 
the expedition they was upon. "Cobbs," says the Governor, "if 
this is so, I must set off myself to York, and quiet their friends' 
minds. In which case you must keep your eye upon 'era, and 
humour 'em, till I come back. But before I take these measures, 
Cobbs, I should wish you to find from themselves whether your 
opinion is correct." " Sir, to you," says Cobbs, " that shall be done 
directly." 

So Boots goes up-stairs to the Angel, and there he finds Master 
Harry on a e-normous sofa, — immense at any time, but looking 
like the Great Bed of Ware, compared with him, — a drying the 
eyes of Miss Norah with his pocket-hankecher. Their little legs 
was entirely off the ground, of course, and it really is not possible 
for Boots to express to me how small them children looked. 

" It's Cobbs ! It's Cobbs ! " cries Master Harry, and comes 
running to him, and catching hold of his hand. Miss Norah comes 
running to him on t'other side and catching hold of his t'other hand, 
and they both jump for joy. 

"I see you a getting out, sir," says Cobbs. "I thought it was 



72 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

you. I thought I couldn't be mistaken in your height and figure. 
What's the object of your journey, sir 1 — Matrimonial 1 " 

"We are going to be married, Cobbs, at Gretna Green," returned 
the boy. " We have run away on purpose. Norah has been in 
rather low spirits, Cobbs ; but she'll be happy, now we have found 
you to be our friend." 

" Thank you, sir, and thank t/ou, miss," says Cobbs, " for your 
good opinion. Did you bring any luggage with you, sir 1 " 

If I will believe Boots when he gives me his word and honour 
upon it, the lady had got a parasol, a smelling-bottle, a round and a 
half of cold buttered toast, eight peppermint drops, and a hair-brush, 
— seemingly a doll's. The gentleman had got about half a dozen 
yards of string, a knife, three or four sheets of writing-paper folded 
up surprising small, a orange, and a Chaney mug with his name 
upon it. 

"What may be the exact natur of your plans, sir? "says Cobbs. 

"To go on," replied the boy, — which the courage of that boy 
was something wonderful ! — "in the morning, and be married 
to-morrow." 

"Just so, sir," says Cobbs. "Would it meet your views, sir, if 
I was to accompany you ? " 

When Cobbs said this, they both jumped for joy again, and cried 
out, " Oh, yes, yes, Cobbs ! Yes ! " 

" Well, sir," says Cobbs. " If you will excuse my having the 
freedom to give an opinion, what I should recommend Avould be 
this. I'm acquainted ^vith a pony, sir, which, put in a pheayton 
that I could borrow, would take you and Mrs. Harry Walmers, 
Junior (myself driving, if you approved), to the end of your journey 
in a very short space of time. I am not altogether sure, sir, that 
this pony will be at liberty to-morrow, but even if you had to wait 
over to-morrow for him, it might be worth your while. As to the 
small account here, sir, in case you was to find yourself running at 
all short, that don't signify ; because I'm a part proprietor of this 
inn, and it could stand over." 

Boots assures me that when they clapped their hands, and 
jumped for joy again, and called him " Good Cobbs ! " and " Dear 
Cobbs ! " and bent across him to kiss one another in the delight 
of their confiding hearts, he felt himself the meanest rascal for 
deceiving 'em that ever was born. 

" Is there anything you want just at present, sir ? " says Cobbs, 
mortally ashamed of himself. 

" We should like some cakes after dinner," answered Master 
Harry, folding his arms, putting out one leg, and looking straight 
at him, "and two apples, — and jam. With dinner we should like 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 73 

to have toast-and-water. But Norah has always been accustomed 
to half a glass of currant wine at dessert. And so have I." 

" It shall be ordered at the bar, sir," says Cobbs ; and away he 
went. 

Boots has the feeling as fresh upon him at this minute of speak- 
ing as he had then, that he would far rather have had it out in half 
a dozen rounds with the Governor than have combined with him ; 
and that he wished with all his heart there was any impossible 
place where those two babies could make an impossible marriage, 
and live impossibly happy ever afterwards. However, as it couldn't 
be, he went into the Governor's plans, and the Governor set off for 
York in half an hour. 

The way in which the women of that house — without exception 
— every one of 'em — married and single — took to that boy when 
they heard the story, Boots considers surprising. It was as much 
as he could do to keep 'em from dashing into the room and kissing 
him. They climbed up all sorts of places, at the risk of their lives, 
to look at him through a pane of glass. They was seven deep at 
the keyhole. They was out of their minds about him and his bold 
spirit. 

In the evening. Boots went into the room to see how the run- 
away couple was getting on. The gentleman was on the window- 
seat, supporting the lady in his arms. She had tears upon her 
face, and was lying, very tired and half asleep, with her head upon 
his shoulder. 

" Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, fatigued, sir 1 " says Cobbs. 

" Yes, she is tired, Cobbs ; but she is not used to be away from 
home, and she has been in low spirits again. Cobbs, do you think 
you could bring a biffin, please 1 " 

" I ask your pardon, sir," says Cobbs. " What was it you — ?" 

" I think a Norfolk biffin would rouse her, Cobbs. She is very 
fond of them." 

Boots withdrew in search of the required restorative, and, when 
he brought it in, the gentleman handed it to the lady, and fed 
her with a spoon, and took a little himself ; the lady being heavy 
with sleep, and rather cross. "What should you think, sir," says 
Cobbs, " of a chamber candlestick ? " The gentleman approved ; 
the chambermaid went first, up the great staircase ; the lady, in 
her sky-blue mantle, followed, gallantly escorted by the gentle- 
man ; the gentleman embraced her at her door, and retired to his 
own apartment, where Boots softly locked him up. 

Boots couldn't but feel with increased acuteness what a base 
deceiver he was, when they consulted him at breakfast (they had 
ordered sweet milk-and-water, and toast and currant jelly, over- 



74 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

night) about the pony. It really was as much as he could do, he 
don't mind confessing to me, to look them two young things in the 
face, and think what a wicked old father of lies he had grown up 
to be. Howsomever, he went on a lying like a Trojan about the 
pony. He told 'em that it did so unfort'nately happen that the 
pony was half cHpped, you see, and that he couldn't be taken out 
in that state, for fear it should strike to his inside. But that he'd 
be finished clipping in the course of the day, and that to-morrow 
morning at eight o'clock the pheayton would be ready. Boots's 
view of the whole case, looking back on it in my room, is, that 
Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior, was beginning to give in. She hadn't 
had her hair curled when she went to bed, and she didn't seem 
quite up to brushing it herself, and its getting in her eyes put her 
out. But nothing put out Master Harry. He sat behind his 
breakfast-cup, a tearing away at the jelly, as if he had been his own 
fiither. 

After breakfast. Boots is inclined to consider that they drawed 
soldiers, — at least, he knows that many such was found in the 
fire-place, all on horseback. In the course of the morning, Master 
Harry rang the bell, — it was surprising how that there boy did 
carry on, — and said, in a sprightly way, " Cobbs, is there any 
good walks in this neighbourhood 1 " 

"Yes, sir," says Cobbs. "There's Love-lane." 
" Get out with you, Cobbs ! " — that was that there boy's ex- 
pression, — " you're joking." 

"Begging your pardon, sir," says Cobbs, "there really is Love- 
lane. And a pleasant walk it is, and proud shall I be to show it 
to yourself and Mrs. Harry Walmers, Junior." 

" Norah, dear," said Master Harry, " this is curious. We really 
ought to see Love-lane. Put on your bonnet, my sweetest dar- 
ling, and we will go there with Cobbs." 

Boots leaves me to judge what a Beast he felt himself to be, 
when that young pair told him, as they all three jogged along 
together, that they had made up their minds to give him two 
thousand guineas a year as head-gardener, on accounts of his being 
so true a friend to 'em. Boots could have wished at the moment 
that the earth would have opened and swallowed him up, he felt 
so mean, with their beaming eyes a looking at him, and believing 
him. Well, sir, he turned the conversation as well as he could, 
and he took 'em down Love-lane to the water-meadows, and there 
Master Harry would have drowned himself in half a moment more, 
a getting out a water-lily for her, — but nothing daunted that boy. 
Well, sir, they was tired out. All being so new and strange to 
'em, they was tired as tired could be. And they laid down on a 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 75 

bank of daisies, like the children in the wood, leastways meadows, 
and fell asleep. 

Boots don't know — perhaps I do, — but never mind, it don't 
signify either way — why it made a man fit to make a fool of him- 
self to see them two pretty babies a lying there in the clear still 
sunny day, not dreaming half so hard when they was asleep as 
they done when they was awake. But, Lord ! when you come to 
think of yourself, you know, and what a game you have been up 
to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of 
a chap you are, and how it's always either Yesterday with you, or 
else To-morrow, and never To-day, that's where it is ! 

Well, sir, they woke up at last, and then one thing was getting 
pretty clear to Boots, namely, that Mrs. Harry Walmerses, Junior's, 
temper was on the move. AVhen Master Harry took her round 
the waist, she said he " teased her so ; " and when he says, " Norah, 
my young May Moon, your Harry tease you ? " she tells him, " Yes ; 
and I want to go home ! " 

A biled fowl, and baked bread-and-butter pudding, brought Mrs. 
Walmers up a little ; but Boots could have wished, he must pri- 
vately own to me, to have seen her more sensible of the woice of 
love, and less abandoning of herself to currants. However, Master 
Harry, he kept up, and his noble heart was as fond as ever. Mrs. 
Walmers turned very sleepy about dusk, and began to cry. There- 
fore, Mrs. Walmers went off to bed as per yesterday ; and Master 
Harry ditto repeated. 

About eleven or twelve at night comes back the Governor in a 
chaise, along with Mr. Walmers and a elderly lady. Mr. Walmers 
looks amused and very serious, both at once, and says to our missis, 
" We are much indebted to you, ma'am, for your kind care of our 
little children, which we can never sufficiently acknowledge. Pray, 
ma'am, where is my boy ?" Our missis says, " Cobbs has the dear 
child in charge, sir. Cobbs, show Forty ! " Then he says to Cobbs, 
" Ah, Cobbs, I am glad to see you I I understood you was here ! " 
And Cobbs says, " Yes, sir. Your most obedient, sir." 

I may be surprised .to hear Boots say it. perhaps ; but Boots 
assures me that his heart beat like a hammer, going up-stairs. " I 
beg your pardon, sir," says he, while unlocking the door ; "I hope 
you are not angry with Master Harry. For Master Harry is a 
fine boy, sir, and will do you credit and honour." And Boots 
signifies to me, that, if the fine boy's father had contradicted him 
in the daring state of mind in which he then was, he thinks he 
should have "fetched him a crack," and taken the consequences. 

But Mr. Walmers only says, " No, Cobbs. No, my good fellow. 
Thank you ! " And, the door being opened, goes in. 



76 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

Boots goes in too, holding the light, and he sees Mr Walmers 
go up to the bedside, bend gently down, and kiss the little sleeping 
face Then he stands looking at it for a mmute, looking wonder- 
fully like it (they do say he ran away with Mrs. Walmers) ; and 
then he gently shakes the little shoulder. 

'' Harry, my dear boy ! Harry ! " -, r^ w 

Master Harry starts up and looks at him. Looks at Oobbs too. 
Such is the honour of that mite, that he looks at Cobbs, to see 
whether he has brought him into trouble. 

" I am not angry, my child. I only want you to dress yourself 
and come home." 

"Yes, pa." ^ . 

Master Harry dresses himself quickly. His breast begins to 
swell when he has nearly finished, and it swells more and more as 
he stands, at last, a looking at his father : his father standing a 
looking at him, the quiet image of him. 

" Please may I " — the spirit of that little creatur, and the way 
he kept his rising tears down ! — " please, dear pa — may I — 
kiss Norah before I go ? " 
"You may, my child." 

So he takes Master Harry in his hand, and Boots leads the way 
with the candle, and they come to that other bedroom, where the 
elderly lady is seated by the bed, and poor little Mrs. Harry Walm- 
ers Junior, is fast asleep. There the father lifts the child up 
to the pillow, and he lays his little face down for an instant by the 
little warm face of poor unconscious little Mrs. Harry Walmers, 
Junior, and gently draws it to him, —a sight so touching to the 
chambermaids who are peeping through the door, that one of them 
calls out, " It's a shame to part 'em ! " But this chambermaid 
was always, as Boots informs me, a soft-hearted one. Not that 
there was any harm in that girl. Far from it. 

Finally, Boots says, that's all about it. Mr. Walmers drove 
away in the chaise, having hold of Master Harry's hand. The 
elderly lady and Mrs. Harry AValmers, Junior, that was never to 
be (she married a Captain long afterwards, and died in India), went 
off next day. In conclusion. Boots put it to me whether I hoLl 
with him in two opinions : firstly, that there are not many couples 
on their way to be married who are half as innocent of guile as 
those two children ; secondly, that it would be a jolly good thing 
for a great many couples on their way to be married, if they could 
only be stopped in time, and brought back separately. 



THE HOLLY-TREE. 77 

Chapter III. 

THE BILL. 

I HAD been snowed up a whole week. The time had hung so 
lightly on my hands, that I should have been in great doubt of the 
fact but for a piece of documentary evidence that lay upon my table. 

The road had been dug out of the snow on the previous day, and 
the document in question w^as my Bill. It testified emphatically to 
my having eaten and drunk, and warmed myself, and slept among 
the sheltering branches of the Holly-Tree, seven days and nights. 

I had yesterday allowed the road twenty-four hours to improve 
itself, finding that I required that additional margin of time for the 
completion of my task, I had ordered my Bill to be upon the 
table, and a chaise to be at the door, " at eight o'clock to-morrow 
evening." It was eight o'clock to-morrow evening when I buckled 
up my travelling writing-desk in its leather case, paid my Bill, and 
got on my warm coats and wrappers. Of course, no time now 
remained for my travelling on to add a frozen tear to the icicles 
which were doubtless hanging plentifully about the farm-house 
where I had first seen Angela. What I had to do was to get 
across to Liverpool by the shortest open road, there to meet my 
heavy baggage and embark. It was quite enough to do, and I had 
not an hour too much time to do it in. 

I had taken leave of all my Holly-Tree friends — almost, for the 
time being, of my bashfulness too — and was standing for half a 
minute at the Inn door watching the ostler as he took another turn 
at the cord which tied my portmanteau on the chaise, when I saw 
lamps coming down towards the Holly-Tree. The road was so 
padded with snow that no wheels were audible; but all of us who 
were standing at the Inn door saw lamps coming on, and at a lively 
rate too, between the walls of snow that had been heaped up on 
either side of the track. The chambermaid instantly divined how 
the case stood, and called to the ostler, " Tom, this is a Gretna 
job ! " The ostler, knowing that her sex instinctively scented a 
marriage, or anything in that direction, rushed up the yard bawl- 
ing, " Next four out ! " and in a moment the whole establishment 
was thrown into commotion. 

I had a melancholy interest in seeing the happy man who loved 
and was beloved ; and therefore, instead of driving off at once, I 
remained at the Inn door when the fugitives drove up. A bright- 
eyed fellow, muffled in a mantle, jumped out so briskly that he 
almost overthrew me. He turned to apologise, and, by Heaven, it 
was Edwin ! 



78 THE HOLLY-TREE. 

" Charley ! " said he, recoiUng. " Gracious powers, what do you 

do here?" . , . , 

"Edwin," said I, recoiling, "gracious powers, what do you do 
here % " I struck my forehead as I said it, and an insupportable 
blaze of light seemed to shoot before my eyes. 

He hurried me into the little parlour (always kept with a slow 
fire in it and no poker), where posting company waited while their 
horses were putting to, and, shutting the door, said : 

" Charley, forgive me ! " ^ , , , 

" Edwin ! " I returned. " Was this well % When I loved her so 
dearly ! When I had garnered up my heart so long ! " I could 
say no more. 

He was shocked when he saw how moved I was, and made the 
cruel observation, that he had not thought I should have taken it 
so much to heart. i . i • 

I looked at him. I reproached him no more. But I looked at him. 
"My dear, dear Charley," said he, "don't think ill of me, I 
beseech you ! I know you have a right to my utmost confidence, 
and, believe me, you have ever had it until now. I abhor secrecy. 
Its meanness is intolerable to me. But I and my dear girl have 
observed it for your sake." 

He and his dear girl ! It steeled me. 

" You have observed it for my sake, sir % " said I, wondering how 
his frank face could face it out so. 
<< Yes ! — and Angela's," said he. 

I found the room reeling round in an uncertain way, like a 
labouring humming-top. " Explain yourself," said I, holding on 
by one hand to an arm-chair. 

" Dear old darling Charley ! " returned Edwin, in his cordial 
manner, " consider ! When you were going on so happily with 
Angela, why should I compromise you with the old gentleman by 
making you a party to our engagement, and (after he had declined 
my proposals) to our secret intention % Surely it was better that 
you should be able honourably to say, ' He never took counsel with 
me, never told me, never breathed a word of it.' If Angela sus- 
pected it, and showed me all the favour and support she could — 
God bless her for a precious creature and a priceless wife ! — I 
couldn't help that. Neither I nor Emmeline ever told her, any 
more than we told you. And for the same good reason, Charley ; 
trust me, for the same good reason, and no other upon earth ! " 

Emmeline was Angela's cousin. Lived with her. Had been 
brought up with her. Was her father's ward. Had property. 

" Emmeline is in the chaise, my dear Edwin ! " said I, embrac- 
ing him with the greatest affection. 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 79 

" My good fellow ! " said he, " do you suppose I should be going 
to Gretna Green without her ? " 

I ran out with Edwin, I opened the chaise door, I took Emme- 
line in my arms, I folded her to my heart. She was wrapped in 
soft white fur, like the snowy landscape : but was warm, and young, 
and lovely. I put their leaders to with my own hands, I gave the 
boys a five-pound note apiece, I cheered them as they drove away, 
I drove the other way myself as hard as I could pelt. 

I never went to Liverpool, I never went to America, I Avent 
straight back to London, and I married Angela. I have never 
until this time, even to her, disclosed the secret of my character, 
and the mistrust and the mistaken journey into which it led me. 
When she, and they, and our eight children and their seven — I 
mean Edwin's and Emmeline's, whose eldest girl is old enough now 
to wear white for herself, and to look very like her mother in it — 
come to read these pages, as of course they will, I shall hardly 
fail to be found out at last. Never mind ! I can bear it. I began 
at the Holly-Tree, by idle accident, to associate the Christmas-time 
of year with human interest, and with some inquiry into, and some 
care for, the lives of those by whom I find myself surrounded. I 
hope that I am none the worse for it, and that no one near me or afar 
off is the worse for it. And I say. May the green Holly- Tree flour- 
ish, striking its roots deep into our English ground, and having its 
germinating qualities carried by the birds of Heaven all over the 
world ! 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

IN TWO CHAPTERS. 

Chapter I. 

THE WRECK. 

I WAS apprenticed to the Sea when I was twelve years old, and 
I have encountered a great deal of rough weather, both literal and 
metaphorical. It has always been my opinion since I first pos- 
sessed such a thing as an opinion, that the man who knows only 
one subject is next tiresome to the man who knows no subject. 
Therefore, in the course of my life I have taught myself whatever 
I could, and although I am not an educated man, I am able, I am 
thankful to say, to have an intelligent interest in most things. 

A person might suppose, from reading the above, that I am in 
the habit of holding forth about number one. That is not the case. 




THE WRECK OF THE "GOLDEN MART 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MABY. 81 

Just as if I was to come into a room among strangers, and must 
either be introduced or introduce myself, so I have taken the liberty 
of passing these few remarks, simply and plainly that it may be 
known who and what I am. I will add no more of the sort than 
that my name is William George Ravender, that I was born at 
Penrith half a year after my own father was drowned, and that 
I am on the second day of this present blessed Christmas week 
of one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, fifty-six years of age. 

When the rumour first went flying up and down that there was 
gold in California — which, as most people know, was before it 
was discovered in the British colony of Australia — I was in the 
West Indies, trading among the Islands. Being in command and 
likewise part-owner of a smart schooner, I had my work cut out 
for me, and I was doing it. Consequently, gold in California was 
no business of mine. 

But, by the time when I came home to England again, the thing 
was as clear as your hand held up before you at noon-day. There 
was Californian gold in the museums and in the goldsmiths' shops, 
and the very first time I went upon 'Change, I met a friend of 
mine (a seafaring man like myself), with a Californian nugget hang- 
ing to his watch-chain. I handled it. It was as like a peeled 
walnut with bits unevenly broken off here and there, and then 
electrotyped all over, as ever I saw anything in my life. 

I am a single man (she was too good for this world and for me, 
and she died six weeks before our marriage-day), so when I am 
ashore, I live in my house at Poplar. My house at Poplar is 
taken care of and kept ship-shape by an old lady who was my 
mother's maid before I was born. She is as handsome and as up- 
right as any old lady in the world. She is as fond of me as if she 
had ever had an only son, and I was he. Well do I know wher- 
ever I sail that she never lays down her head at night without 
having said, " Merciful Lord ! bless and preserve William George 
Ravender, and send him safe home, through Christ our Saviour ! " 
I have thought of it in many a dangerous moment, when it has 
done me no harm, I am sure. 

In my house at Poplar, along with this old lady, I lived quiet 
for best part of a year : having had a long spell of it among the 
Islands, and having (which was very uncommon in me) taken the 
fever rather badly. At last, being strong and hearty, and having 
read every book I could lay hold of, right out, I was walking down 
Leadenhall Street in the City of London, thinking of turning-to 
again, when I met what I call Smithick and Watersby of Liverpool. 
I chanced to lift up my eyes from looking in at a ship's chronom- 
eter in a window, and I saw him bearing down upon me, head on. 



82 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

It is, personally, neither Smithick, nor Watersby, that I here 
mention, nor was I ever acquainted with any man of either of those 
names, nor do I think that there has been any one of either of 
those names in that Liverpool House for years back. But, it is 
in reality the House itself that I refer to ; and a wiser merchant 
or a truer gentleman never stepped. 

" My dear Captain Eavender," says he. " Of all the men on 
earth, I wanted to see you most. I was on my way to you." 

" Well ! " says I. " That looks as if you 2vere to see me, don't 
it ? " With that I put my arm in his, and we walked on towards 
the Royal Exchange, and when we got there, walked up and down 
at the back of it where the Clock-Tower is. We walked an hour 
and more, for he had much to say to me. He had a scheme for 
chartering a new ship of their own to take out cargo to the diggers 
and emigrants in California, and to buy and bring back gold. Into 
the particulars of that scheme I will not enter, and I have no right 
to enter. All I say of it is, that it was a very original one, a very 
fine one, a very sound one, and a very lucrative one beyond doubt. 

He imparted it to me as freely as if I had been a part of him- 
self. After doing so, he made me the handsomest sharing offer 
that ever was made to me, boy or man — or I believe to any other 
captain in the Merchant Navy — and he took this round turn to 
finish with : 

" Ra vender, you are well aware that the lawlessness of that coast 
and country at present is as special as the circumstances in which 
it is placed. Crews of vessels outward-bound desert as soon as 
they make the land; crews of vessels homeward-bound, ship at 
enormous wages, with the express intention of murdering the captain 
and seizing the gold freight ; no man can trust another, and the 
devil seems let loose. Now," says he, "you know my opinion of 
you, and you know I am only expressing it, and with no singular- 
ity, when I tell you that you are almost the only man on whose 
integrity, discretion, and energy — " &c., &c. For, I don't want 
to repeat what he said, though I was and am sensible of it. 

Notwithstanding my being, as I have mentioned, quite ready for 
a voyage, still I had some doubts of this voyage. Of course I 
knew, without being told, that there were peculiar difl&culties and 
dangers in it, a long way over and above those which attend all 
voyages. It must not be supposed that I was afraid to face them ; 
but, in my opinion a man has no manly motive or sustainment in 
his own breast for facing dangers, unless he has well considered 
what they are, and is able quietly to say to himself, "None of 
these perils can now take me by surprise ; I shall know what to 
do for the best in any of them ; all the rest lies in the higher and 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 83 

greater hands to which I humbly commit myself." On this prin- 
ciple I have so attentively considered (regarding it as my duty) all 
the hazards I have ever been able to think of, in the ordinary way 
of storm, shipwreck, and fire at sea, that I hope I should be pre- 
pared to do, in any of those cases, whatever could be done, to save 
the lives entrusted to my charge. 

As I was thoughtful, my good friend proposed that he should 
leave me to walk there as long as I liked, and that I should dine 
with him by-and-bye at his club in Pall Mall. I accepted the in- 
vitation and I walked up and down there, quarter-deck fashion, a 
matter of a couple of hours ; now and then looking up at the weather- 
cock as I might have looked up aloft; and now and then taking a 
look into Cornhill, as I might have taken a look over the side. 

All dinner-time, and all after dinner-time, we talked it over again. 
I gave him my views of his plan, and he very much approved of the 
same, I told him I had nearly decided, but not quite. "Well, 
well," says he, " come down to Liverpool to-morrow with me, and 
see the Golden Mary." I liked the name (her name was Mary, and 
she was golden, if golden stands for good), so I began to feel that it 
was almost done when I said I would go to Liverpool. On the 
next morning but one we were on board the Golden Mary. I might 
have known, from his asking me to come down and see her, what 
she was. I declare her to have been the completest and most ex- 
quisite Beauty that ever I set my eyes upon. 

We had inspected every timber in her, and had come back to the 
gangway to go ashore from the dock-basin, when I put out my hand 
to my friend. "Touch upon it," says I, "and touch heartily. I 
take command of this ship, and I am hers and yours, if I can get 
John Steadiman for my chief mate." 

John Steadiman had sailed with me four voyages. The first 
voyage John was third mate out to China, and came home second. 
The other three voyages he was my first officer. At this time of 
chartering the Golden Mary, he was aged thirty-two. A brisk, 
bright, blue-eyed fellow, a very neat figure and rather under the 
middle size, never out of the way and never in it, a face that pleased 
everybody and that all children took to, a habit of going about sing- 
ing as cheerily as a blackbird, and a perfect sailor. 

We were in one of those Liverpool hackney-coaches in less than 
a minute, and we cruised about in her upwards of three hours, look- 
ing for John. John had come home from Van Diemen's Land 
barely a month before, and I had heard of him as taking a frisk in 
Liverpool. We asked after him, among many other places, at the 
two boarding-houses he was fondest of, and we found he had had a 
week's spell at each of them ; but, he had gone here and gone there. 



84 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

and had set off "to lay out on the main-to'-gallant-yard of the high- 
est Welsh mountain " (so he had told the people of the house), and 
where he might be then, or when he might come back nobody could 
tell us. But it was surprising, to be sure, to see how every face 
brightened the moment there was mention made of the name of 
Mr. Steadiman. 

We were taken aback at meeting with no better luck, and we 
had wore ship and put her head for my friends, when as we were 
jogging through the streets, I clap my eyes on John himself com- 
ing out of a toy-shop ! He was carrying a little boy, and conduct- 
ing two uncommon pretty women to their coach, and he told me 
afterwards that he had never in his life seen one of the three before, 
but that he was so taken with them on looking in at the toy-shop 
while they were buying the child a cranky Noah's Ark, very much 
down by the head, that he had gone in and asked the ladies' per- 
mission to treat him to a tolerably correct Cutter there was in the 
window, in order that such a handsome boy might not grow up with 
a lubberly idea of naval architecture. 

We stood off and on until the ladies' coachman began to give 
way, and then we hailed John. On his coming aboard of us, I told 
him, very gravely, what I had said to my friend. It struck him, 
as he said himself, amidships. He was quite shaken by it. "Cap- 
tain Ravender," were John Steadiman's words, "such an opinion 
from you is true commendation, and I'll sail round the world with 
you for twenty years if you hoist the signal, and stand by you for 
ever ! " And now indeed I felt that it was done, and that the 
Golden Mary was afloat. 

Grass never grew yet under the feet of Smithick and Watersby, 
The riggers were out of that ship in a fortnight's time, and we had 
begun taking in cargo. John was always aboard, seeing everything 
stowed with his own eyes ; and whenever I went aboard myself early 
or late, whether he was below in the hold, or on deck at the hatchway, 
or overhauling his cabin, nailing up pictures in it of the Blush Roses 
of England, the Blue Belles of Scotland, and the female Shamrock of 
Ireland : of a certainty I heard John singing like a blackbird. 

We had room for twenty passengers. Our sailing advertisement 
was no sooner out, than we might have taken these twenty times 
over. In entering our men, I and John (both together) picked 
them, and we entered none but good hands — as good as were to be 
found in that port. And so, in a good ship of the best build, well 
owned, well arranged, well officered, well manned, well found in all 
respects, we parted with our pilot at a quarter past four o'clock in 
the afternoon of the seventh of March, one thousand eight hundred 
and fifty-one, and stood with a fair wind out to sea. 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 85 

It may be easily believed that up to that time I had had no lei- 
sure to be intimate with my passengers. The most of them were 
then in their berths seasick; however, in going among them, tell- 
ing them what was good for them, persuading them not to be there, 
but to come up on deck and feel the breeze, and in rousing them 
with a joke, or a comfortable word, I made acquaintance with them, 
perhaps, in a more friendly and confidential way from the first, than 
I might have done at the cabin table. 

Of my passengers, I need only particularise, just at present, a 
bright-eyed blooming young wife who was going out to join her hus- 
band in California, taking with her their only child, a little girl of three 
years old, whom he had never seen ; a sedate young woman in black, 
some five years older (about thirty as I should say), w^ho was going 
out to join a brother; and an old gentleman, a good deal like a hawk 
if his eyes had been better and not so red, who was always talking, 
morning, noon, and night, about the gold discovery. But, whether 
he was making the voyage, thinking his old arms could dig for gold, 
or whether his speculation was to buy it, or to barter for it, or to 
cheat for it, or to snatch it anyhow from other people, w^as his 
secret. He kept his secret. 

These three and the child were the soonest w^ell. The child was 
a most engaging child, to be sure, and very fond of me : though I 
am bound to admit that John Steadiman and I were borne on her 
pretty little books in reverse order, and that he was captain there, 
and I was mate. It was beautiful to watch her with John, and it 
was beautiful to watch John with her. Few would have thought 
it possible, to see John playing at bo-peep round the mast, that he 
was the man who had caught up an iron bar and struck a Malay 
and a Maltese dead, as they were gliding with their knives down the 
cabin stair aboard the barque Old England, when the captain lay 
ill in his cot, off Saugar Point. But he was ; and give him his 
back against a bulwark, he would have done the same by half a 
dozen of them. The name of the young mother was Mrs. Ather- 
field, the name of the young lady in black was Miss Coleshaw, and 
the name of the old gentleman Avas Mr. Rarx. 

As the child had a quantity of shining fair hair, clustering in 
curls all about her face, and as her name was Lucy, Steadiman gave 
her the name of the Golden Lucy. So, we had the Golden Lucy 
and the Golden Mary ; and John kept up the idea to that extent 
as he and the child went playing about the decks, that I believe 
she used to think the ship was alive somehow — a sister or com- 
panion, going to the same place as herself. She liked to be by the 
wheel, and in fine weather, I have often stood by the man whose 
trick it was at the wheel, only to hear her, sitting near my feet, 



86 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

talking to the ship. Never had a child such a doll before, I sup- 
pose ; but she made a doll of the Golden Mary, and used to dress 
her up by tying ribbons and little bits of finery to the belaying- 
pins ; and nobody ever moved them, unless it was to save them 
from being blown away. 

Of course I took charge of the two young women, and I called 
them "my dear," and they never minded, knowing that whatever 
I said was said in a fatherly and protecting spirit. I gave them 
their places on each side of me at dinner, Mrs. Atherfield on my 
right and Miss Coleshaw on my left ; and I directed the unmarried 
lady to serve out the breakfast, and the married lady to serve out 
the tea. Likewise I said to my black steward in their presence, 
" Tom Snow, these two ladies are equally the mistresses of this 
house, and do you obey their orders equally ; " at which Tom 
laughed, and they all laughed. 

Old Mr. Rarx was not a pleasant man to look at, nor yet to talk 
to, or to be with, for no one could help seeing that he was a sordid 
and selfish character, and that he had warped further and further 
out of the straight with time. Not but what he was on his best 
behaviour with us, as everybody was ; for we had no bickering 
among us, for'ard or aft. I only mean to say, he was not the man 
one would have chosen for a messmate. If choice there had been, 
one might even have gone a few points out of one's course to say, 
" No ! Not him ! " But, there was one curious inconsistency in 
Mr. Rarx. That was, that he took an astonishing interest in the 
child. He looked, and I may add, he was, one of the last of men to 
care at all for a child, or to care much for any human creature. 
Still, he went so far as to be habitually uneasy, if the child was 
long on deck, out of his sight. He was always afraid of her fall- 
ing overboard, or falling down a hatchway, or of a block or what 
not coming down upon her from the rigging in the working of the 
ship, or of her getting some hurt or other. He used to look at her 
and touch her, as if she was something precious to him. He was 
always solicitous about her not injuring her health, and constantly 
entreated her mother to be careful of it. This was so much the 
more curious, because the child did not like him, but used to shrink 
away from him, and would not even put out her hand to him with- 
out coaxing from others. I believe that every soul on board fre- 
quently noticed this, and not one of us understood it. However, it 
was such a plain fact, that John Steadiman said more than once 
when old Mr. Rarx was not within earshot, that if the Golden Mary 
felt a tenderness for the dear old gentleman she carried in her lap, 
she must be bitterly jealous of the Golden Lucy. 

Before I go any further with this narrative, I will state that our 



1 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 87 

ship was a barque of three hundred tons, carrying a crew of eighteen 
men, a second mate in addition to John, a carpenter, an armourer 
or smith, and two apprentices (one a Scotch boy, poor little fellow). 
We had three boats ; the Long-boat, capable of carrying twenty- 
five men ; the Cutter, capable of carrying fifteen ; and the Surf- 
boat, capable of carrying ten. I put down the capacity of these 
boats according to the numbers they were really meant to hold. 

We had tastes of bad weather and head-winds, of course ; but, 
on the whole, we had as fine a run as any reasonable man could 
expect, for sixty days. I then began to enter two remarks in the 
ship's Log and in my Journal ; first, that there was an unusual and 
amazing quantity of ice ; second, that the nights were most won- 
derfully dark, in spite of the ice. 

For five days and a half, it seemed quite useless and hopeless to 
alter the ship's course so as to stand out of the way of this ice. I 
made what southing I could ; but, all that time, we were beset by 
it. Mrs. Atherfield after standing by me on deck once, looking for 
some time in an awed manner at the great bergs that surrounded 
us, said in a whisper, " ! Captain Ravender, it looks as if the 
whole solid earth had changed into ice, and broken up ! " I said 
to her, laughing, "I don't wonder that it does, to your inexperi- 
enced eyes, my dear." But I had never seen a twentieth part of 
the quantity, and, in reality, I was pretty much of her opinion. 

However, at two p.m. on the afternoon of the sixth day, that is 
to say, when we were sixty-six days out, John Steadiman, who had 
gone aloft, sang out from the top, that the sea was clear ahead. 
Before four p.m. a strong breeze springing up right astern, we were 
in open water at sunset. The breeze then freshening into half a 
gale of wind, and the Golden Mary being a very fast sailer, we went 
before the wind merrily, all night. 

I had thought it impossible that it could be darker than it had 
been, until the sun, moon, and stars should fall out of the Heavens, 
and Time should be destroyed ; but, it had been next to light, in 
comparison with what it was now. The darkness was so profound, 
that looking into it was painful and oppressive — like looking, with- 
out a ray of light, into a dense black bandage put as close before 
the eyes as it could be, without touching them. I doubled the look- 
out, and John and I stood in the bow side-by-side, never leaving it 
all night. Yet I should no more have known that he was near me 
when he was silent, without putting out my arm and touching him, 
than I should if he had turned in and been fast asleep below. We 
were not so much looking out, all of us, as listening to the utmost, 
both with our eyes and ears. 

Next day, I found that the mercury in the barometer, which had 



88 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

risen steadily since we cleared the ice, remained steady. I had 
had very good observations, with now and then the interruption of 
a day or so, since our departure. I got the sun at noon, and found 
that we were in Lat. 58° S., Long. 60° W., off New South Shet- 
land ; in the neighbourhood of Cape Horn. We were sixty-seven 
days out, that day. The ship's reckoning was accurately worked 
and made up. The ship did her duty admirably, all on board were 
well, and all hands were as smart, efficient, and contented, as it 
was possible to be. 

When the night came on again as dark as before, it was the 
eighth night I had been on deck. Nor had I taken more than a very 
little sleep in the day-time, my station being always near the helm, 
and often at it, while we were among the ice. Few but those who 
have tried it can imagine the difficulty and pain of only keeping the 
eyes open — physically open — under such circumstances, in such 
darkness. They get struck by the darkness, and blinded by the 
darkness. They make patterns in it, and they flash in it, as if 
they had gone out of your head to look at you. On the turn of 
midnight, John Steadiman, who was alert and fresh (for I had 
always made him turn in by day), said to me, " Captain Ravender, 
I entreat of you to go below. I am sure you can hardly stand, and 
your voice is getting weak, sir. Go below, and take a little rest. 
I'll call you if a block chafes." I said to John in answer, "Well, well, 
John ! Let us wait till the turn of one o'clock, before we talk 
about that." I had just had one of the ship's lanterns held up, 
that I might see how the night went by my watch, and it was then 
twenty minutes after twelve. 

At five minutes before one, John sang out to the boy to bring the 
lantern again, and when I told him once more what the time was, 
entreated and prayed of me to go below. " Captain Ravender," 
says he, " all's well ; we can't afford to have you laid up for a single 
hour; and I respectfidly and earnestly beg of you to go below." 
The end of it was, that I agreed to do so, on the understanding that 
if I failed to come up of my own accord within three hours, I was 
to be punctually called. Having settled that, I left John in charge. 
But I called him to me once afterwards, to ask him a question. 
I had been to look at the barometer, and had seen the mercuiy 
still perfectly steady, and had come up the companion again to take 
a last look about me — if I can use such a word in reference to 
such darkness — when I thought that the waves, as the Golden 
Mary parted them and shook them off, had a hollow sound in them; 
something that I fancied was a rather unusual reverberation. I 
was standing by the quarter-deck rail on the starboard side, when 
I called John aft to me, and bade him listen. He did so with the 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 89 

greatest attention. Turning to me he then said, " Rely upon it, 
Captain Ravender, you have been without rest too long, and the 
novelty is only in the state of your sense of hearing." I thought 
so too by that time, and I think so now, though I can never know 
for absolute certain in this world, whether it was or not. 

When I left John Steadiman in charge, the ship was still going 
at a great rate through the water. The wind still blew right 
astern. Though she was making great way, she was under short- 
ened sail, and had no more than she could easily carry. All was 
snug, and nothing complained. There was a pretty sea running, 
but not a very high sea neither, nor at all a confused one. 

I turned in, as we seamen say, all standings The meaning of 
that is, I did not pull my clothes off — no, not even so much as 
my coat : though I did my shoes, for my feet were badly swelled 
with the deck. There was a little swing-lamp alight in my cabin. 
I thought, as I looked at it before shutting my eyes, that I was so 
tired of darkness, and troubled by darkness, that I could have gone 
to sleep best in the midst of a million of flaming gas-lights. That 
was the last thought I had before I went oft*, except the prevailing 
thought that I should not be able to get to sleep at all. 

I dreamed that I was back at Penrith again, and was trying to 
get round the church, which had altered its shape very much since 
I last saw it, and was cloven all down the middle of the steeple in 
a most singular manner. Wliy I wanted to get round the church 
I don't know ; but I was as anxious to do it as if my life depended 
on it. Indeed, I believe it did in the dream. For all that, I could 
not get round the church. I was still trying, when I came against 
it with a violent shock, and was flung out of my cot against the 
ship's side. Shrieks and a terrific outcry struck me far harder 
than the bruising timbers, and amidst sounds of grinding and 
crashing, and a heavy rushing and breaking of water — sounds I 
understood too well — I made my way on deck. It was not an 
easy thing to do, for the ship heeled over frightfully, and was beat- 
ing in a furious manner. 

I could not see the men as I went forward, but I could hear that 
they were hauling in sail, in disorder. I had my trumpet in my 
hand, and, after directing and encouraging them in this till it was 
done, I hailed first John Steadiman, and then my second mate, Mr. 
William Rames. Both answered clearly and steadily. Now, I had 
practised them and all my crew, as I have ever made it a custom to 
practise all who sail with me, to take certain stations and wait my 
orders, in case of any unexpected crisis. When my voice was heard 
hailing, and their voices were heard answering, I was aware, through 
all the noises of the ship and sea, and all the crying of the passen- 



90 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

gers below, that there was a pause. "Are you ready, Rames?" 
— " Ay, ay, sir ! " — " Then hght up, for God's sake ! " In a mo- 
ment he and another were burning bkie-lights, and the ship and all 
on board seemed to be enclosed in a mist of light, under a great 
black dome. 

The light shone up so high that I could see the huge Iceberg 
upon which we had struck, cloven at the top and down the middle, 
exactly like Penrith Church in my dream. At the same moment 
I could see the watch last relieved crowding up and down on deck ; 
I could see Mrs. Atherfield and Miss Coleshaw thrown about on the 
top of the companion as they struggled to bring the child up from 
below ; I could see that the masts were going with the shock and 
the beating of the ship ; I could see the frightful breach stove in 
on the starboard side, half the length of the vessel, and the sheath- 
ing and timbers spirting up ; I could see that the Cutter was dis- 
abled, in a wreck of broken fragments ; and I could see every eye 
turned upon me. It is my belief that if there had been ten thou- 
sand eyes there, I should have seen them all, with their different 
looks. And all this in a moment. But you must consider what a 
moment. 

I saw the men, as they looked at me, fall towards their ap- 
pointed stations, like good men and true. If she had not righted, 
they could have done very little there or anywhere but die — not 
that it is little for a man to die at his post — I mean they could 
have done nothing to save the passengers and themselves. Hap- 
pily, however, the violence of the shock with which we had so 
determinedly borne down direct on that fatal Iceberg, as if it had 
been our destination instead of our destruction, had so smashed 
and pounded the ship that she got off in this same instant and 
righted. I did not want the carpenter to tell me she was filling 
and going down ; I could see and hear that. I gave Rames the 
word to lower the Long-boat and the Surf-boat, and I myself told 
off the men for each duty. Not one hung back, or came before 
the other. I now whispered to John Steadiman, " John, I stand 
at the gangway here, to see every soul on board safe over the 
side. You shall have the next post of honour, and shall be the 
last but one to leave the ship. Bring up the passengers, and range 
them behind me ; and put what provision and water you can get 
at, in the boats. Cast your eye for'ard, John, and you'll see you 
have not a moment to lose." 

My noble fellows got the boats over the side as orderly as I ever 
saw boats lowered with any sea running, and, when they were 
launched, two or three of the nearest men in them as they held on, 
rising and falling with the swell, called out, looking up at me. 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 91 

" Captain Ravencler, if anything goes wrong with us, and you are 
saved, remember we stood by you ! " — " We'll all stand by one 
another ashore, yet, please God, my lads ! " says I. " Hold on 
bravely, and be tender with the women." 

The women were an example to us. They trembled very much, 
but they were quiet and perfectly collected. " Kiss me. Captain 
Ravender," says Mrs. Atherfield, "and God in heaven bless you, 
you good man ! " "My dear," says I, "those words are better for 
me than a life-boat." I held her child in my arms till she was in 
the boat, and then kissed the child and handed her safe down. I 
now said to the people in her, "You have got your freight, my 
lads, all but me, and I am not coming yet a\^ile. Pull away 
from the ship, and keep off ! " 

That was the Long-boat. Old Mr. Rarx was one of her comple- 
ment, and he was the only passenger who had greatly misbehaved 
since the ship struck. Others had been a little wild, which was 
not to be wondered at, and not very blamable ; but, he had made 
a lamentation and uproar which it was dangerous for the people to 
hear, as there is always contagion in weakness and selfishness. 
His incessant cry had been that he must not be separated from the 
child, that he couldn't see the child, and that he and the child must 
go together. He had even tried to wrest the child out of my arms, 
that he might keep her in his. " Mr. Rarx," said I to him when 
it came to that, " I have a loaded pistol in my pocket ; and if you 
don't stand out of the gangway, and keep perfectly quiet, I shall 
shoot you through the heart, if you have got one." Says he, 
"You won't do murder, Captain Ravender!" "No, sir," says I, 
" I won't murder forty-four people to humour you, but I'll shoot 
you to save them." After that he was quiet, and stood shivering 
a little way off, until I named him to go over the side. 

The Long-boat being cast off, the Surf-boat was soon filled. 
There only remained aboard the Golden Mary, John Mullion, the 
man who had kept on burning the blue-lights (and who had lighted 
every new one at every old one before it went out, as quietly as if 
he had been at an illumination); John Steadiman ; and myself. I 
hurried those two into the Surf-boat, called to them to keep off, 
and waited with a grateful and relieved heart for the Long-boat to 
come and take me in, if she could. I looked at my watch, and it 
showed me, by the blue-light, ten minutes past two. They lost no 
time. As soon as she was near enough, I swung myself into her, 
and called to the men, " With a will, lads ! She's reeling ! " 
We were not an inch too far out of the inner vortex of her going 
down, when, by the blue-light which John Mullion still burnt in 
the bow of the Surf-boat, we saw her lurch, and plunge to the 



92 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

bottom head-foremost. The child cried, weeping wildly, "0 the 
dear Golden Mary ! look at her ! Save her ! Save the poor 
Golden Mary ! " And then the light burnt out, and the black 
dome seemed to come down upon us. 

I suppose if we had all stood atop of a mountain, and seen the 
whole remainder of the world sink away from under us, we could 
hardly have felt more shocked and solitary than we did when wc 
knew we were alone on the wide ocean, and that the beautiful ship 
in which most of us had been securely asleep within half an hour 
was gone for ever. There was an awful silence in our boat, and 
such a kind of palsy on the rowers and the man at the rudder, 
that I felt they were scarcely keeping her before the sea. I spoke 
out then, and said, "Let eveiy one here thank the Lord for our 
preservation!" All the voices answered (even the child's), "Wc 
thank the Lord ! " I then said the Lord's Prayer, and all hands 
said it after me with a solemn murmuring. Then I gave the word 
" Cheerily, men. Cheerily ! " and I felt that they were handling 
the boat again as a boat ought to be handled. 

The Surf-boat now burnt another blue-light to show us where 
they were, and we made for her, and laid ourselves as nearly along- 
side of her as we dared. I had always kept my boats with a coil 
or two of good stout stuff in each of them, so both boats had a 
rope at hand. We made a shift, with much labour and trouble, 
to get near enough to one another to divide the blue-lights (they 
were no use after that night, for the sea-water soon got at them), 
and to get a tow-rope out between us. All night long we kept 
together, sometimes obliged to cast off the rope, and sometimes 
getting it out again, and all of us wearying for the morning — 
which appeared so long in coming that old Mr. Rarx screamed out, 
in spite of his fears of me, " The world is drawing to an end, and 
the siln will never rise any more ! " 

When the day broke, I found that we were all huddled together 
in a miserable manner. We were deep in the water ; being, as I 
found on mustering, thirty-one in number, or at least six too many. 
In the Surf-boat they were fourteen in number, being at least four 
too many. The first thing I did, was to get myself passed to the 
rudder — which I took from that time — and to get Mrs. Atherfield, 
her child, and Miss Coleshaw, passed on to sit next me. As to old 
Mr. Rarx, I put him in the bow, as far from us as I could. And 
I put some of the best men near us in order that if I should drop 
there might be a skilful hand ready to take the helm. 

The sea moderating as the sun came up, though the sky was 
cloudy and wild, we spoke the other boat, to know what stores 
they had, and to overhaul what we had. I had a compass in my 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 93 

pocket, a small telescope, a double-barrelled pistol, a knife, and a 
fire-box and matches. Most of my men had knives, and some had 
a little tobacco : some, a pipe as well. We had a mug among us, 
and an iron spoon. As to provisions, there were in my boat two 
bags of biscuit, one piece of raw beef, one piece of raw pork, a bag 
of coffee, roasted but not ground (thrown in, I imagine, by mistake, 
for something else), two small casks of water, and about half a 
gallon of rum in a keg. The Surf-boat, having rather more rum 
than Ave, and fewer to drink it, gave us, as I estimated, another 
quart into our keg. In return, we gave them three double hand- 
fuls of coffee, tied up in a piece of a handkerchief; they reported 
that they had aboard besides, a bag of biscuit, -a piece of beef, a 
small cask of water, a small box of lemons, and. a Dutch cheese. 
It took a long time to make these exchanges, and they were not 
made without risk to both parties; the sea running quite high 
enough to make our approaching near to one another very hazard- 
ous. In the bundle with the coffee, I conveyed to John Steadiman 
(who had a ship's compass with him), a paper written in pencil, 
and torn from my pocket-book, containing the course I meant to 
steer, in the hope of making land, or being picked up by some 
vessel — I say in the hope, though I had little hope of either de- 
liverance. I then sang out to him, so as all might hear, that if 
we two boats could live or die together, we would ; but, that if we 
should be parted by the weather, and join company no more, they 
should have our prayers and blessings, and we asked for theirs. 
We then gave them three cheers, which they returned, and I saw 
the men's heads droop in both boats as they fell to their oars 
again. 

These arrangements had occupied the general attention advan- 
tageously for all, though (as I expressed in the last sentence) they 
ended in a sorrowful feeling. I now said a few words to my fellow- 
voyagers on the subject of the small stock of food on which our 
lives depended if they were preserved from the great deep, and on 
the rigid necessity of our eking it out in the most frugal manner. 
One and all replied that whatever allowance I thought best to lay 
down should be strictly kept to. We made a pair of scales out of 
a thin scrap of iron-plating and some twine, and I got together for 
weights such of the heaviest buttons among us as I calculated made 
up some fraction over two ounces. This was the allowance of solid 
food served out once a day to each, from that time to the end ; with 
the addition of a coffee-berry, or sometimes half a one, when the 
weather was very fair, for breakfast. We had nothing else what- 
ever, but half a pint of water each per day, and sometimes, when 
we were coldest and weakest, a teaspoonful of rum each, served out 



94 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. j 

as a dram. I know how learnedly it can be shown that rum is 
poison, but I also know that in this case, as in all similar cases I 
have ever read of — which are numerous — no words can express 
the comfort and support derived from it. Nor have I the least 
doubt that it saved the lives of far more than half our number. 
Having mentioned half a pint of water as our daily allowance, I 
ought to observe that sometimes we had less, and sometimes we had 
more ; for much rain fell, and we caught it in a canvas stretched 
for the purpose. 

Thus, at that tempestuous time of the year, and in that tempest- 
uous part of the world, we shipwrecked people rose and fell with 
the waves. It is not my intention to relate (if I can avoid it) such 
circumstances appertaining to our doleful condition as have been 
better told in many other narratives of the kind than I can be 
expected to tell them. I will only note, in so many passing words, 
that day after day and night after night, we received the sea upon 
our backs to prevent it from swamping the boat ; that one party 
was always kept baling, and that every hat and cap among us soon 
got worn out, though patched up fifty times, as the only vessels we 
had for that service ; that another party lay down in the bottom of 
the boat, while a third rowed ; and that we were soon all in boils 
and blisters and rags. 

The other boat was a source of such anxious interest to all of us 
that I used to wonder whether, if we were saved, the time could 
ever come when the survivors in this boat of ours could be at all 
indifferent to the fortunes of the survivors in that. We got out 
a tow-rope whenever the weather permitted, but that did not often 
happen, and how we two parties kept within the same horizon, as 
we did. He, who mercifully permitted it to be so for our consola- 
tion, only knows. I never shall forget the looks with which, when 
the morning light came, we used to gaze about us over the stormy 
waters, for the other boat. We once parted company for seventy- 
two hours, and we believed them to have gone down, as they did 
us. The joy on both sides when we came within view of one an- 
other again, had something in a manner Divine in it ; each was so 
forgetful of individual suffering, in tears of delight and sympathy 
for the people in the other boat. 

I have been wanting to get round to the individual or personal 
part of my subject, as I call it, and the foregoing incident puts me 
in the right way. The patience and good disposition aboard of 
us, was wonderful, I was not surprised by it in the women ; for 
all men born of women know what great qualities they will show 
when men will fail ; but, I own I was a little surprised by it in 
some of the men. Among one-and-thirty people assembled at the 



THE AVRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 95 

best of times, there will usually, I should say, be two or three un- 
certain tempers. I knew that I had more than one rough temper 
with me among my own people, for I had chosen those for the 
Long-boat that I might have them under my eye. But, they soft- 
ened under their misery, and were as considerate of the ladies, and 
as compassionate of the child, as the best among us, or among men 

— they could not have been more so. I heard scarcely any com- 
plaining. The party lying down would moan a good deal in their 
sleep, and I would often notice a man — not always the same man, 
it is to be understood, but nearly all of them at one time or other 

— sitting moaning at his oar, or in his place, as he looked mistily 
over the sea. When it happened to be long before I could catch 
his eye, he would go on moaning all the time in the dismalest 
manner; but, when our looks met, he would brighten and leave 
off. I almost always got the impression that he did not know 
what sound he had been making, but that he thought he had been 
humming a tune. 

Our sufferings from cold and wet were far greater than our suf- 
ferings from hunger. We managed to keep the child warm ; but, 
I doubt if any one else among us ever was warm for five minutes 
together; and the shivering, and the chattering of teeth, were sad 
to hear. The child cried a little at first for her lost playfellow, the 
Golden Mary ; but hardly ever whimpered afterwards ; and when 
the state of the weather made it possible, she used now and then 
to be held up in the arms of some of us, to look over the sea for 
John Steadiman's boat. I see the golden hair and the innocent 
face now, between me and the driving clouds, like an angel going 
to fly away. 

It had happened on the second day, towards night, that Mrs. 
Atherfield, in getting little Lucy to sleep, sang her a song. She 
had a soft, melodious voice, and, when she had finished it, our 
people up and begged for another. She sang them another, and 
after it had fallen dark ended with the Evening Hymn. From 
that time, whenever anything could be heard above the sea and 
wind, and while she had any voice left, nothing would serve the 
people but that she should sing at sunset. She always did, and 
always ended with the Evening Hymn. We mostly took up the 
last line, and shed tears when it was done, but not miserably. 
We had a prayer night and morning, also, when the weather 
allowed of it. 

Twelve nights and eleven days we had been driving in the boat, 
when old Mr. Rarx began to be delirious, and to cry out to me to 
throw the gold overboard or it would sink us, and we sliould all 
be lost. For days past the child had been declining, and that was 



96 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MAKY. 

the great cause of his wildness. He had been over and over again 
shrieking out to me to give her all the remaining meat, to give her 
all the remaining rum, to save her at any cost, or we should all be 
ruined. At this time, she lay in her mother's arms at my feet. 
One of her little hands was almost always creeping about her 
mother's neck or chin. I had watched the wasting of the little 
hand, and I knew it was nearly over. 

The old man's cries were so discordant with the mother's love 
and submission, that I called out to him in an angry voice, unless 
he held his peace on the instant, I would order him to be knocked on 
the head and thrown overboard. He was mute then, until the child 
died, very peacefully, an hour afterwards : which was known to 
all in the boat by the mother's breaking out into lamentations for 
the first time since the wreck — for, she had great fortitude and 
constancy, though she was a little gentle woman. Old Mr. Rarx 
then became quite ungovernable, tearing what rags he had on him, 
raging in imprecations, and calling to me that if I had thrown the 
gold overboard (always the gold with him !) I might have saved the 
child. "And now," says he, in a terrible voice, "we shall founder, 
and all go to the Devil, for our sins will sink us, when we have no 
innocent child to bear us up ! " We so discovered with amaze- 
ment, that this old wretch had only cared for the life of the pretty 
little creature dear to all of us, because of the influence he super- 
stitiously hoped she might have in preserving him ! Altogether 
it was too much for the smith or armourer, who was sitting next 
the old man, to bear. He took him by the throat and rolled him 
under the thwarts, where he lay still enough for hours afterwards. 

All that thirteenth night. Miss Coleshaw, lying across my knees 
as I kept the helm, comforted and supported the poor mother. 
Her child, covered with a pea-jacket of mine, lay in her lap. It 
troubled me all night to think that there was no Prayer-Book 
among us, and that I could remember but very few of the exact 
words of the burial service. When I stood up at broad day, all 
knew what was going to be done, and I noticed that my poor fel- 
lows made the motion of uncovering their heads, though their heads 
had been stark bare to the sky and sea for many a weary hour. 
There was a long heavy swell on, but otherwise it was a fair morn- 
ing, and there were broad fields of sunlight on the waves in the 
east. I said no more than this : " I am the Resurrection and the 
Life, saith the Lord. He raised the daughter of Jairus the ruler, 
and said she was not dead but slept. He raised the widow's son. 
He arose Himself, and was seen of many. He loved little children, 
saying, Sufler them to come unto Me and rebuke them not, for of 
such is the kingdom of heaven. In His name, my friends, and 



I 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 97 

committed to His merciful goodness ! " With those words I laid 
my rough face softly on the placid little forehead, and buried the 
Golden Lucy in the grave of the Golden Mary. 

Having had it on my mind to relate the end of this dear little 
child, I have omitted something from its exact place, which I will 
supply here. It will come quite as well here as anywhere else. 

Foreseeing that if the boat lived through the stormy weather, 
the time must come, and soon come, when we should have abso- 
lutely no morsel to eat, I had one momentous point often in my 
thoughts. Although I had, years before that, fully satisfied myself 
that the instances in which human beings in the last distress have 
fed upon each other, are exceedingly few, and. have very seldom 
indeed (if ever) occurred when the people in distress, however 
dreadful their extremity, have been accustomed to moderate for- 
bearance and restraint; I say, though I had long before quite satis- 
fied my mind on this topic, I felt doubtful whether there might 
not have been in former cases some harm and danger from keeping 
it out of sight and pretending not to think of it. I felt doubtful 
whether some minds, growing weak with fasting and exposure and 
having such a terrific idea to dwell upon in secret, might not mag- 
nify it until it got to have an awful attraction about it. This was 
not a new thought of mine, for it had grown out of my reading. 
However, it came over me stronger than it had ever done before — 
as it had reason for doing — in the boat, and on the fourth day I 
decided that I would bring out into the light that unformed fear 
which must have been more or less darkly in every brain among 
us. Therefore, as a means of beguiling the time and inspiring 
hope, I gave them the best summary in my power of Bligh's 
voyage of more than three thousand miles, in an open boat, 
after the Mutiny of the Bounty, and of the wonderful preservation 
of that boat's crew. They listened throughout with great interest, 
and I concluded by telling them, that, in my opinion, the hap- 
piest circumstance in the whole narrative was, that Bligh, who 
was no delicate man either, had solemnly placed it on record therein 
that he was sure and certain that under no conceivable circumstances 
whatever would that emaciated party, who had gone through all 
the pains of famine, have preyed on one another. I cannot de- 
scribe the visible relief which this spread through the boat, and 
how the tears stood in every eye. From that time I was as well 
convinced as Bligh himself that there was no danger, and that this 
phantom, at any rate, did not haunt us. 

Now, it was a part of Bligh's experience that when the people 
in his boat were most cast down, nothing did them so much good 
as hearing a story told by one of their number. When I mentioned 

H 



98 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

that, I saw that it struck the general attention as much as it did 
my own, for I had not thought of it until I came to it in my sum- 
mary. This was on the day after Mrs. Atherfield first sang to us. 
I proposed that, whenever the weather would permit, we should 
have a story two hours after dinner (I always issued the allowance 
I have mentioned at one o'clock, and called it by that name), as 
well as our song at sunset. The proposal was received with a 
cheerful satisfaction that warmed my heart within me ; and I do 
not say too much when I say that those two periods in the four- 
and-twenty hours were expected with positive pleasure, and were 
really enjoyed by all hands. Spectres as we soon were in our bodily 
wasting, our imaginations did not perish like the gross flesh upon 
our bones. Music and Adventure, two of the great gifts of Provi- 
dence to mankind, could charm us long after that was lost. 

The wind was almost always against us after the second day ; 
and for many days together we could not nearly hold our own. 
"We had all varieties of bad weather. We had rain, hail, snow, 
wind, mist, thunder, and lightning. Still the boats lived through 
the heavy seas, and still we perishing people rose and fell with the 
great waves. 

Sixteen nights and fifteen days, twenty nights and nineteen days, 
twenty-four nights and twenty-three days. So the time went on. 
Disheartening as I knew that our progress, or want of progress, must 
be, I never deceived them as to my calculations of it. In the first 
place, I felt that we were all too near eternity for deceit; in the 
second place, I knew that if I failed, or died, the man who followed 
me must have a knowledge of the true state of things to begin upon. 
When I told them at noon, what I reckoned we had made or lost, 
they generally received what I said in a tranquil and resigned man- 
ner, and always gratefully towards me. It was not unusual at any 
time of the day for some one to burst out weeping loudly without 
any new cause ; and, when the burst was over, to calm down a lit- 
tle better than before. I had seen exactly the same thing in a house 
of mourning. 

During the whole of this time, old Mr. Rarx had had his fits of 
calling out to me to throw the gold (always the gold ! ) overboard, 
and of heaping violent reproaches upon me for not having saved the 
child ; but now, the food being all gone, and I having nothing left to 
serve out but a bit of cofi'ee-berry now and then, he began to be 
too weak to do this, and consequently fell silent. Mrs. Atherfield 
and Miss Coleshaw generally lay, each with an arm across one of 
my knees, and her head upon it. They never complained at all. 
Up to the time of her child's death, Mrs. Atherfield had bound up 
her own beautiful hair every day ; and I took particular notice that 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 99 

this was always before she sang her song at night, when every one 
looked at her. But she never did it after the loss of her darling ; 
and it would have been now all tangled with dirt and wet, but that 
Miss Coleshaw was careful of it long after she was, herself, and 
would sometimes smooth it down with her weak thin hands. 

We were past mustering a story now ; but one day, at about this 
period, I reverted to the superstition of old Mr. Rarx, concerning 
the Golden Lucy, and told them that nothing vanished from the 
eye of God, though much might pass away from the eyes of men, 
"We were all of us," says I, "children once; and our baby feet 
have strolled in green woods ashore ; and our baby hands have 
gathered flowers in gardens, where the birds were singing. The 
children that we were, are not lost to the great knowledge of our 
Creator. Those innocent creatures will appear with us before Him, 
and plead for us. What we were in the best time of our generous 
youth will arise and go with us too. The purest part of our lives 
will not desert us at the pass to which all of us here present are 
gliding. What we were then, will be as much in existence before 
Him, as what we are now." They were no less comforted by this 
consideration, than I was myself ; and Miss Coleshaw, drawing my 
ear nearer to her lips, said, " Captain Ra vender, I was on my way 
to marry a disgraced and broken man, whom I dearly loved when 
he was honourable and good. Your words seem to have come out 
of my owi^poor heart." She pressed my hand upon it, smiling. 

Twenty-seven nights and twenty-six days. We were in no want 
of rain-water, but we had nothing else. And yet, even now, I 
never turned my eyes upon a waking face but it tried to brighten 
before mine. 0, what a thing it is, in a time of danger and in the 
presence of death, the shining of a face upon a face ! I have heard 
it broached that orders should be given in great new ships by 
electric telegraph. I admire machinery as much as any man, and 
am as thankful to it as any man can be for what it does for us. 
But it will never be a substitute for the face of a man, with his 
soul in it, encouraging another man to be brave and true. Never 
try it for that. It will break down like a straw. 

I now began to remark certain changes in myself which I did 
not like. They caused me much disquiet. I often saw the Golden 
Lucy in the air above the boat. I often saw her I have spoken of 
before, sitting beside me. I saw the Golden Mary go down, as she 
really had gone down, twenty times in a day. And yet the sea 
was mostly, to my thinking, not sea neither, but moving country 
and extraordinary mountainous regions, the like of which have 
never been beheld. I felt it time to leave my last words regarding 
John Steadiman, in case any lips should last out to repeat them to 



100 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

any living ears. I said that John had told me (as he had on deck) 
that he had sung out "Breakers ahead!" the instant they were 
audible, and had tried to wear ship, but she struck before it could 
be done. (His cry, I dare say, had made my dream.) I said that 
the circumstances were altogether without warning, and out of any 
course that could have been guarded against ; that the same loss 
would have happened if I had been in charge ; and that John was 
not to blame, but from first to last had done his duty nobly, like 
the man he was. I tried to write it down in my pocket-book, but 
could make no words, though I knew what the words were that I 
wanted to make. When it had come to that, her hands — though 
she was dead so long — laid me down gently in the bottom of the 
boat, and she and the Golden Lucy swung me to sleep. 



All that followsj was written hy John Steadiman, Chief Mate : 

On the twenty-sixth day after the foundering of the Golden Maiy 
at sea, I, John Steadiman, was sitting in my place in the stem- 
sheets of the Surf-boat, with just sense enough left in me to steer 
— that is to say, with my eyes strained, wide-awake, over the bows 
of the boat, and my brains fast asleep and dreaming — when I was 
roused upon a sudden by our second mate, Mr. William Rames. 

" Let me take a spell in your place," says he. " And lt)ok you out 
for the Long-boat astern. The last time she rose on the crest of a 
wave, I thought I made out a signal flying aboard her." 

We shifted our places, clumsily and slowly enough, for we were 
both of us weak and dazed wdth wet, cold, and hunger. I waited 
some time, watching the heavy rollers astern, before the Long-boat 
rose atop of one of them at the same time with us. At last, she 
was heaved up for a moment well in view, and there, sure enough, 
was the signal flying aboard of her — a strip of rag of some sort, 
rigged to an oar, and hoisted in her bows. 

" What does it mean ? " says Rames to me in a quavering, trem- 
bling sort of voice. " Do they signal a sail in sight 1 " 

" Hush, for God's sake ! " says I, clapping my hand over his 
mouth. "Don't let the people hear you. They'll all go mad 
together if we mislead them about that signal. Wait a bit, till I 
have another look at it." 

I held on by him, for he had set me all of a tremble with his 
notion of a sail in sight, and watched for the Long-boat again. 
Up she rose on the top of another roller. I made out the signal 
clearly, that second time, and saw that it was rigged half-mast 
high. 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 101 

"Rames," says I, "it's a signal of distress. Pass the word 
forward to keep her before the sea, and no more. We must get 
the Long-boat within hailing distance of us, as soon as possible." 

I dropped down into my old place at the tiller without another 
word — for the thought went through me like a knife that some- 
thing had happened to Captain Ravender. I should consider my- 
self unworthy to write another line of this statement, if I had not 
made up my mind to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth — and I must, therefore, confess plainly that now, 
for the first time, my heart sank within me. This weakness on 
my part was produced in some degree, as I take it, by the exhaust- 
ing effects of previous anxiety and grief. 

Our provisions — if I may give that name to what we had left 
— were reduced to the rind of one lemon and about a couple of 
handsfull of coflPee-berries. Besides these great distresses, caused 
by the death, the danger, and the sufiering among my crew and 
passengers, I had had a little distress of my own to shake me still 
more, in the death of the child whom I had got to be very fond of 
on the voyage out — so fond that I was secretly a little jealous of 
her being taken in the Long-boat instead of mine when the ship 
foundered. It used to be a great comfort to me, and I think to 
those with me also, after we had seen the last of the Golden Mary, 
to see the Golden Lucy, held up by the men in the Long-boat, 
when the weather allowed it, as the best and brightest sight they 
had to show. She looked, at the distance we saw her from, almost 
like a little white bird in the air. To miss her for the first time, 
when the weather lulled a little again, and we all looked out for 
our white bird and looked in vain, was a sore disappointment. To 
see the men's heads bowed down and the captain's hand pointing 
into the sea when we hailed the Long-boat, a few days after, gave 
me as heavy a shock and as sharp a pang of heartache to bear as 
ever I remember suffering in all my life. I only mention these 
things to show that if I did give way a little at first, under the 
dread that our captain was lost to us, it was not without having 
been a good deal shaken beforehand by more trials of one sort or 
another than often fall to one man's share. 

I had got over the choking in my throat with the help of a drop 
of water, and had steadied my mind again so as to be prepared 
against the worst, when I heard the hail (Lord help the poor 
fellows, how weak it sounded !) — 

"Surf-boat, ahoy!" 

I looked up, and there were our companions in misfortune toss- 
ing abreast of us ; not so near that we could make out the features 
of any of them, but near enough, with some exertion for people 



102 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

in our condition, to make their voices heard in the intervals when 
the wind was weakest. 

I answered the hail, and waited a bit, and heard nothing, and 
then sung out the captain's name. The voice that replied did not 
sound like his ; the words that reached us were : 

" Chief mate wanted on board ! " 

Every man of my crew knew what that meant as well as I did. 
As second officer in command, there could be but one reason for 
wanting me on board the Long-boat. A groan went all round us, 
and my men looked darkly in each other's faces, and whispered 
under their breaths : 

" The captain is dead ! " 

I commanded them to be silent, and not to make too sure of bad 
news, at such a pass as things had now come to with us. Then, 
hailing the Long-boat, I signified that I was ready to go on board 
when the weather would let me — stopped a bit to draw a good 
long breath — and then called out as loud as I could the dreadful 
question : 

" Is the captain dead ? " 

The black figures of three or four men in the after-part of the 
Long-boat all stooped down together as my voice reached them. 
They were lost to view for about a minute ; then appeared again — 
one man among them was held up on his feet by the rest, and he 
hailed back the blessed words (a very faint hope went a very long 
way with people in our desperate situation) : " Not yet ! " 

The relief felt by me, and by all with me, when we knew that 
our captain, though unfitted for duty, was not lost to us, it is not 
in words — at least, not in such words as a man like me can com- 
mand — to express. I did my best to cheer the men by telling 
them what a good sign it was that we were not as badly off" yet 
as we had feared ; and then communicated what instructions I had 
to give, to William Rames, who was to be left in command in my 
place when I took charge of the Long-boat. After that, there was 
nothing to be done, but to wait for the chance of the wind dropping 
at sunset, and the sea going down afterwards, so as to enable our 
weak crews to lay the two boats alongside of each other, without 
undue risk — or, to put it plainer, without saddling ourselves with 
the necessity for any extraordinary exertion of strength or skill. 
Both the one and the other had now been starved out of us for 
days and days together. 

At sunset the wind suddenly dropped, but the sea, which had 
been running high for so long a time past, took hours after that 
before it showed any signs of getting to rest. The moon was shin- 
ing, the sky was wonderfully clear, and it could not have been, 



THE WRECK OE TH'E GOLDEN MARY. 103 

according to my calculations, far off midnight, when the long, slow, 
regular swell of the calming ocean fairly set in, and I took the 
responsibility of lessening the distance between the Long-boat and 
ourselves. 

It w^as, I dare say, a delusion of mine ; but I thought I had 
never seen the moon shine so white and ghastly anywhere, either 
at sea or on land, as she shone that night while we were approach- 
ing our companions in misery. When there was not much more 
than a boat's length between us, and the white light streamed cold 
and clear over all our faces, both crews rested on their oars with 
one great shudder, and stared over the gunwale of either boat, 
panic-stricken at the first sight of each other. 

"Any lives lost among you?" I asked, in the midst of that 
frightful silence. 

The men in the Long-boat huddled together like sheep at the 
sound of my voice. 

"None yet, but the child, thanks be to God!" answered one 
among them. 

And at the sound of his voice, all my men shrank together like the 
men in the Long-boat. I was afraid to let the horror produced by 
our first meeting at close quarters after the dreadful changes that 
wet, cold, and famine had produced, last one moment longer than 
could be helped ; so, without giving time for any more questions 
and answers, I commanded the men to lay the two boats close 
alongside of each other. When I rose up and committed the tiller 
to the hands of Rames, all my poor fellows raised their white faces 
imploringly to mine. "Don't leave us, sir," they said, "don't 
leave us." "I leave you," says I, "under the command and the 
guidance of Mr. William Rames, as good a sailor as I am, and as 
trusty and kind a man as ever stepped. Do your duty by him, 
as you have done it by me ; and remember to the last, that while 
there is life there is hope. God bless and help you all ! " With 
those words I collected what strength I had left, and caught at 
two arms that were held out to me, and so got from the stern-sheets 
of one boat into the stern-sheets of the other. 

"Mind where you step, sir," whispered one of the men who had 
helped me into the Long-boat. I looked down as he spoke. Three 
figures were huddled up below me, with the moonshine falling on 
them in ragged streaks through the gaps between the men standing 
or sitting above them. The first face I made out was the face of 
Miss Coleshaw, her eyes were wide open and fixed on me. She 
seemed still to keep her senses, and, by the alternate parting and 
closing of her lips, to be trying to speak, but I could not hear that 
she uttered a single word. On her shoulder rested the head of 



104 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

Mrs. Atherfield. The mother of our poor little Golden Lucy must, 
I think, have been dreaming of the child she had lost ; for there 
was a faint smile just ruffling the white stillness of her face, when 
I first saw it turned upward, with peaceful closed eyes towards the 
heavens. From her, I looked down a little, and there, with his 
head on her lap, and with one of her hands resting tenderly on his 
cheek — there lay the captain, to whose help and guidance, up to 
this miserable time, we had never looked in vain, — there, worn out at 
last in our service, and for our sakes, lay the best and bravest man 
of all our company. I stole my hand in gently through his clothes 
and laid it on his heart, and felt a little feeble warmth over it, 
though my cold dulled touch could not detect even the faintest beat- 
ing. The two men in the stern-sheets with me, noticing what I 
was doing — knowing I loved him like a brother — and seeing, 
I suppose, more distress in my face than I myself was conscious 
of its showing, lost command over themselves altogether, and burst 
into a piteous moaning, sobbing lamentation over him. One of the 
two drew aside a jacket from his feet, and showed me that they 
were bare, except where a wet, ragged strip of stocking still clung 
to one of them. When the ship struck the Iceberg, he had run on 
deck leaving his shoes in his cabin. All through the voyage in the 
boat his feet had been unprotected ; and not a soul had discovered 
it until he dropped ! As long as he could keep his eyes open, the 
very look of them had cheered the men, and comforted and upheld 
the women. Not one living creature in the boat, with any sense 
about him, but had felt the good influence of that brave man in one 
way or another. Not one but liad heard him, over and over again, 
give the credit to others which was due only to himself; praising 
this man for patience, and thanking that man for help, when the 
patience and the help had really and truly, as to the best part of 
both, come only from him. All this, and much more, I heard pouring 
confusedly from the men's lips while they crouched down, sobbing and 
crying over their commander, and wrapping the jacket as warmly 
and tenderly as they could over his cold feet. It went to my heart 
to check them ; but I knew that if this lamenting spirit spread any 
further, all chance of keeping alight any last sparks of hope and 
resolution among the boat's company would be lost for ever. Ac- 
cordingly I sent them to their places, spoke a few encouraging words 
to the men forward, promising to serve out, when the morning 
came, as much as I dared, of any eatable thing left in the lockers ; 
called to Rames, in my old boat, to keep as near us as he safely 
could ; drew the garments and coverings of the two poor suffering 
women more closely about them ; and, with a secret prayer to be 
directed for the best in bearing the awful responsibility now laid 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 105 

on my shoulders, took my captain's vacant place at the helm of 
the Long-boat. 

This, as well as I can tell it, is the full and tme account of how 
I came to be placed in charge of the lost passengers and crew of 
the Golden Mary, on the morning of the twenty-seventh day after 
the ship struck the Iceberg, and foundered at sea. 



Chapter II. 

THE DELIVERANCE. 

When the sun rose on the twenty-seventh day of our calamity, 
the first question that I secretly asked myself was. How many 
more mornings will the stoutest of us live to see ? I had kept 
count, ever since we took to the boats, of the days of the week ; 
and I knew that we had now arrived at another Thursday. Judg- 
ing by my own sensations (and I believe I had as much strength 
left as the best man among us), I came to the conclusion that, 
unless the mercy of Providence interposed to effect our deliver- 
ance, not one of our company could hope to see another morning 
after the morning of Sunday. 

Two discoveries that I made — after redeeming my promise 
overnight, to serve out with the morning whatever eatable thing 
I could find — helped to confirm me in my gloomy view of our 
future prospects. In the first place, when the few coff'ee-berries 
left, together with a small allowance of water, had been shared 
all round, I found on examining the lockers that not one grain of 
provision remained, fore or aft, in any part of the boat, and that 
our stock of fresh water was reduced to not much more than 
would fill a wine-bottle. In the second place, after the berries 
had been shared, and the water equally divided, I noticed that 
the sustenance thus administered produced no effect whatever, 
even of the most momentary kind, in raising the spirits of the 
passengers (excepting in one case) or in rallying the strength of 
the crew. The exception was Mr. Rarx. This tough and greedy 
old sinner seemed to wake up from the trance he had lain in so 
long, when the smell of the berries and water was under his nose. 
He swallowed his share with a gulp that many a younger and 
better man in the boat might have envied ; and went maunder- 
ing on to himself afterwards, as if he had got a new lease of life. 
He fancied now that he was digging a gold-mine, all by himself, 
and going down bodily straight through the earth at the rate of 
thirty or forty miles an hour. "Leave me alone," says he, "leave 



106 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

me alone. The lower I go, the richer I get. Down I go ! — down, 
down, down, down, till I burst out at the other end of the world 
in a shower of gold ! " So he went on, kicking feebly with his 
heels from time to time against the bottom of the boat. 

But, as for all the rest, it was a pitiful and dreadful sight to 
see of how little use their last shadow of a meal was to them. I 
myself attended, before anybody else was served, to the two poor 
women. Miss Coleshaw shook her head faintly, and pointed to 
her throat, when I offered her the few berries that fell to her share. 
I made a shift to crush them up fine and mix them with a little 
water, and got her to swallow that miserable drop of drink with 
the greatest difficulty. When it was down there came no change 
for the better over her face. Nor did she recover, for so much as 
a moment, the capacity to speak, even in a whisper. I next tried 
Mrs. Atherfield. It was hard to wake her out of the half-swooning, 
half-sleeping condition in which she lay, — and harder still to get 
her to open her lips when I put the tin-cup to them. When I had 
at last prevailed on her to swallow her allowance, she shut her eyes 
again, and fell back into her old position. I saw her lips moving ; 
and, putting my ear close to them, caught some of the words she 
was murmuring to herself. She was still dreaming of the Golden 
Lucy. She and the child were walking somewhere by the banks 
of a lake, at the time when the buttercups are out. The Golden 
Lucy was gathering the buttercups, and making herself a watch- 
chain out of them, in imitation of the chain that her mother wore. 
They were carrying a little basket with them, and were going to 
dine together in a great hollow tree growing on the banks of the 
lake. To get this pretty picture painted on one's mind as I got it, 
while listening to the poor mother's broken words, and then to look 
up at the haggard faces of the men in the boat, and at the wild 
ocean rolling all round us, was such a change from fancy to real- 
ity as it has fallen, I hope, to few men's lots to experience. 

My next thought, when I had done my best for the women, 
was for the captain. I was free to risk losing my own share of 
water, if I pleased, so I tried, before tasting it myself, to get a 
little between his lips; but his teeth were fast clenched, and I 
had neither strength nor skill to open them. The faint warmth 
still remained, thank God, over his heart — but, in all other 
respects he lay beneath us like a dead man. In covering him up 
again as comfortably as I could, I found a bit of paper crunched 
in one of his hands, and took it out. There was some writing on 
it, but not a word was readable. I suppose, poor fellow, that he 
had been trying to write some last instructions for me, just before 
he dropped at his post. If they had been ever so easy to read, they 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 107 

would have been of no use now. To follow instructions we must 
have had some power to shape the boat's course in a given direc- 
tion — and this, which we had been gradually losing for some days 
past, we had now lost altogether. 

I had hoped that the serving out of the refreshment would have 
put a little modicum of strength into the arms of the men at the 
oars ; but, as I have hinted, this hope turned out to be perfectly 
fruitless. Our last mockery of a meal, which had done nothing for 
the passengers, did nothing either for the crew — except to aggravate 
the pangs of hunger in the men who were still strong enough to feel 
them. While the weather held moderate, it was not of much con- 
sequence if one or two of the rowers kept dropping, in turn, into a 
kind of faint sleep over their oars. But if it came on to blow again 
(and we could expect nothing else in those seas and at that time of 
the year), how was I to steer, when the blades of the oars were out 
of the water ten times as often as they were in ? The lives which 
we had undergone such suffering to preserve would have been lost in 
an instant by the swamping of the boat, if the wind had risen on 
the morning of Thursday, and had caught us trying to row any 
longer. 

Feeling this, I resolved, while the weather held moderately fine, 
to hoist the best substitute for a sail that we could produce, and to 
drive before the wind, on the chance (the last we had to hope for) 
of a ship picking us up. We had only continued to use the oars 
up to this time, in order to keep the course which the captain had 
pointed out as likeliest to bring us near the land. Sailing had been 
out of the question from the first, the masts and suits of sails be- 
longing to each boat having been out of them at the time of the 
wreck, and having gone down with the ship. This was an accident 
which there was no need to deplore, for we were too crowded from 
the first to admit of handling the boats properly, under their reg- 
ular press of sail, in anything like rough weather. 

Having made up my mind on what it was necessary to do, I ad- 
dressed the men, and told them that any notion of holding longer 
on our course with the oars was manifestly out of the question, and 
dangerous to all on board, as their own common sense might tell 
them, in the state to which the stoutest arms among us were now 
reduced. They looked round on each other as I said that, each man 
seeming to think his neighbour weaker than himself. I went on, 
and told them that we must take advantage of our present glimpse 
of moderate weather, and hoist the best sail we could set up, and 
drive before the wind, in tlie hope tliat it might please God to direct 
us in the way of some ship before it was too late. "Our only 
chance, my men," I said, in conclusion, "is the chance of being 



108 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

picked up ; and in these desolate seas one point of the compass is 
just as likely a point for our necessities as another. Half of you 
keep the boat before the sea, the other half bring out your knives, 
and do as I tell you." The prospect of being relieved from the 
oars struck the wandering attention of the men directly; and 
they said, "Ay, ay, sir ! " with something like a faint reflection of 
their former readiness, when the good ship was under their feet, 
and the mess-cans were filled with plenty of wholesome food. 

Thanks to Captain Ravender's forethought in providing both 
boats with a coil of rope, we had our lashings, and the means of 
making what rigging was wanted, ready to hand. One of the oars 
was made fast to the thwart, and well stayed fore and aft, for a 
mast. A large pilot-coat that I wore was spread ; enough of sail 
for us. The only difficulty that puzzled me was occasioned by the 
necessity of making a yard. The men tried to tear up one of the 
thwarts, but were not strong enough. My own knife had been 
broken in the attempt to split a bit of plank for them ; and I was 
almost at my wit's end, when I luckily thought of searching the 
captain's pockets for his knife. I found it — a fine large knife of 
Sheffield manufacture, with plenty of blades, and a small saw among 
them. With this we made a shift to saw oft' about a third of an- 
other oar ; and then the difficulty was conquered ; and we got my 
pilot-coat hoisted on our jury-mast, and rigged it as nigh as we 
could to the fashion of a lug-sail. 

I had looked anxiously towards the Surf-boat, while we were 
rigging our mast, and observed, with a feeling of great relief, that 
the men in her — as soon as they discovered what we were about 
— were wise enough to follow our example. They got on faster 
than we did ; being less put to it for room to turn round in. We 
set our sails as nearly as possible about the same time ; and it was 
well for both boats that we finished our work when we did. At 
noon the wind began to rise again to a stiff" breeze, which soon 
knocked up a heavy, tumbling sea. We drove before it in a direc- 
tion North and by East, keeping wonderfully dry, considering all 
things. The mast stood well ; and the sail, small as it was, did 
good service in steadying the boat and lifting her easily over the 
seas. I felt the cold after the loss of my coat, but not so badly as 
I had feared ; for the two men who were with me in the stern-sheets, 
sat as close as thej'^ could on either side of me, and helped with the 
warmth of their own bodies to keep the warmth in mine. Forward, 
I told off" half a dozen of the most trustworthy of the men who could 
still muster strength enough to keep their eyes open, to set a watch, 
turn and turn about, on our frail rigging. The wind was steadily 
increasing ; and if any accident happened to our mast, the chances 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 109 

were that the boat would broach-to, and that every one of us would 
go to the bottom. 

^ So we drove on — all through that day — sometimes catching 
sight of the Surf-boat a little ahead of us — sometimes losing her 
altogether in the scud. How little and frail, how very different to 
the kind of boat that I had expected to see, she looked to my eyes 
now that I was out of her, and saw what she showed like on the 
waters for the first time ! But to return to the Long-boat. The 
watch on the rigging was relieved every two hours, and at the same 
regular periods all the brightest eyes left amongst us looked out 
for the smallest vestige of a sail in view, and looked in vain. 
Among the passengers, nothing happened in the way of a change 
— except that Miss Coleshaw seemed to grow fainter, and that 
Mrs. Atherfield got restless, as if she were waking out of her long 
dream about the Golden Lucy. 

It got on towards sunset. The wind was rising to half a gale. 
The clouds, which had been heavy all over the firmament since noon, 
were lifting to the westward, and leaving there, over the horizon line 
of the ocean, a long strip of clear, pale, greenish sky, overhung by a 
cloud-bank, whose ragged edges were tipped with burning crimson 
by the sun. I did not like the look of the night, and, keeping 
where I was, in the forward part of the boat, I helped the men to 
ease the strain off our mast, by lowering the yard a little and 
taking a pull on the sheet, so as to present to the wind a smaller 
surface even of our small sail. Noting the wild look of the weather, 
and the precautions we were taking against the chance of a gale 
rising in the night — and being, furthermore, as I believe, staggered 
in their minds by the death that had taken place among them — 
three of the passengers struggled up in the bottom of the boat, 
clasped their arms round me as if they were drowning men already, 
and hoarsely clamoured for a last drink of water, before the storm 
rose and sent us all to the bottom. 

"Water you shall have," I said, "when I think the time has 
come to serve it out. The time has not come yet." 

"Water, pray!" they all three groaned together. Two more 
passengers who were asleep, woke up, and joined the cry. 

" Silence ! " I said. " There are not two spoonfuls of fresh 
water left for each man in the boat. I shall wait three hours more 
for the chance of rain before I serve that out. Silence, and drop 
back to your places ! " 

They let go of me, but clamoured weakly for water still ; and, 
this time, the voices of some of the crew joined them. At this mo- 
ment, to my great alarm (for I thought they were going mad and 
turning violent against me), I was seized round the neck by one 



110 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

of the men, who had been standing up, holding on by the mast, and 
looking out steadily to the westward. 

I raised my right hand to free myself; but before I touched him, 
the sight of the man's face close to mine made me drop my arm 
again. There was a speechless, breathless, frantic joy in it, that 
made all the blood in my veins stand still in a moment. 

" Out with it ! " I said. " Man alive, out with it, for God's 
sake ! " 

His breath beat on my cheek in hot, quick, heavy gasps ; but 
he could not utter a word. For a moment he let go of the mast 
(tightening his hold on me with the other arm) and pointed out 
westward — then slid heavily down on to the thwart behind us. 

I looked westward, and saw that one of the two trustworthy 
men whom I had left at the helm was on his feet looking out west- 
ward, too. As the boat rose, I fixed my eyes on the strip of clear 
greenish sky in the west, and on the bright line of the sea just 
under it. The boat dipped again before I could see anything. I 
squeezed my eyelids together to get the water out of them, and 
when we rose again looked straight into the middle of the bright 
sea-line. My heart bounded as if it would choke me — my tongue 
felt like a cinder in my mouth — my knees gave way under me — 
I dropped down on to the thwart, and sobbed out, with a great eff'ort, 
as if I had been dumb for weeks before, and had only that instant 
found my speech : 

" A sail ! a sail ! " 

The words were instantly echoed by the man in the stern-sheets. 

" Sail, ho ! " he screeches out, turning round on us, and swing- 
ing his arms about his head like a madman. 

This made three of our company who had seen the ship already, 
and that one fact was sufficient to remove all dread lest our eyes 
might have been deceiving us. The great fear now was, not that we 
were deluded, but that we might come to some serious harm through 
the excess of joy among the people ; that is to say, among such of 
the people as still had the sense to feel and the strength to express 
what they felt. I must record in my own justification, after con- 
fessing that I lost command over myself altogether on the discovery 
of the sail, that I was the first who set the example of self-control, 
I was in a manner forced to this by the crew frantically entreating 
me to lay-to until we could make out what course the ship was 
steering — a proceeding which, with the sea then running, with the 
the heavy lading of the boat, and with such feeble substitutes for 
mast and sail as we possessed, must have been attended with total 
destruction to us all. I tried to remind the men of this, but they 
were in such a transport — hugging each other round the neck, and 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. Ill 

crying and laughing all in a breath — that they were not fit to listen 
to reason. Accordingly, I myself went to the helm again, and chose 
the steadiest of my two men in the after-part of the boat : as a guard 
over the sheet, with instructions to use force if necessary, towards 
any one who stretched out so much as a finger to it. The wind was 
rising every minute, and we had nothing for it but to scud, and be 
thankful to God's mercy that we had sea-room to do it in. 

" It will be dark in an hour's time, sir," says the man left along 
with me when I took the helm again. " We have no light to show. 
The ship will pass us in the night. Lay-to, sir ! For the love of 
Heaven, give us all a chance, and lay-to ! " says Jie, and goes down 
on his knees before me, wringing his hands. 

" Lay-to ! " says I. " Lay-to, under a coat ! Lay-to, in a boat 
hke this, with the wind getting up to a gale ! A seaman like you 
talk in that way ! Who have I got along here with me ? Sailors 
who know their craft, or a pack of 'long-shore lubbers, who ought 
to be turned adrift in a ferry-boat on a pond 1 " My heart was 
heavy enough, God knows, but I spoke out as loud as I could, in 
that light way, to try and shame the men back to their proper 
senses. I succeeded at least in restoring silence; and that was 
something in such a condition as ours. 

My next anxiety was to know if the men in the Surf-boat had 
sighted the sail to the westward. She was still driving ahead of 
us, and the first time I saw her rise on the waves, I made out a 
signal on board — a strip of cloth fastened to a boat-hook. I 
ordered the man by my side to return it with his jacket tied on to 
the end of an oar ; being anxious to see whether his agitation had 
calmed down and left him fit for his duty again. He followed my 
direction steadily and when he had got his jacket on again, asked 
me to pardon him for losing his self-command, in a quiet, altered 
voice. 

I shook hands with him, and gave him the helm, in proof that 
my confidence was restored ; then stood up and turned my face to 
the westward once again. I looked long into the belt of clear sky, 
which was narrowing already as the cloud-bank above sank over it. 
I looked with all my heart and soul and strength. It was only 
when my eyes could stand the strain on them no longer, that I 
gave in, and sat down again by the tiller. If I had not been sup- 
ported by a firm trust in the mercy of Providence, which had pre- 
served us thus far, I am afraid I should have abandoned myself at 
that trying time to downright hopeless, speechless despair. 

It would not express much to any but seafaring readers if I 
mentioned the number of leagues off" that I considered the ship to 
be. I shall give a better idea of the terrible distance there was 



112 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

between us, when I say that no landsman's eye could have made 
her out at all, and that none of us sailors could have seen her but 
for the bright opening in the sky, which made even a speck on the 
waters visible to a mariner's experienced sight all that weary way 
off. When I have said this, I have said enough to render it plain 
to every man's understanding that it was a sheer impossibility to 
make out what course the ship was steering, seeing that we had no 
chance of keeping her in view at that closing time of day for more 
than another half-hour, at most. There she was, astern to leeward 
of us ; and here were we, driving for our lives before the wind, with 
any means of kindling a light that we might have possessed on 
leaving our ship wetted through long ago — with no guns to fire 
as signals of distress in the darkness — and with no choice, if the 
wind^ shifted, but still to scud in any direction in which it might 
please to drive us. Supposing, even at the best, that the ship was 
steering on our course, and would overhaul us in the night, what 
chance had we of making our position known to her in the dark- 
ness ? Truly, look at it anyhow we might from our poor mortal 
point of view, our prospect of deliverance seemed to be of the most 
utterly hopeless kind that it is possible to conceive. 

The men felt this bitterly, as the cloud-bank dropped to the 
verge of the waters, and the sun set redly behind it. The moaning 
and lamenting among them was miserable to hear, when the last 
speck and phantom of the ship had vanished from view. Some 
few still swore they saw her when there was hardly a flicker of 
light left in the west, and only gave up looking out, and dropped 
down in the boat, at my express orders. I charged them all sol- 
emnly to set an example of courage to the passengers, and to trust 
the rest to the infinite wisdom and mercy of the Creator of us all. 
Some murmured, some fell to repeating scraps out of the Bible and 
Prayer-Book, some wandered again in their minds. This went on 
till the darkness gathered — then a great hush of silence fell drear- 
ily over passengers and crew ; and the waves and the wind hissed 
and howled about us, as if we were tossing in the midst of them, a 
boat-load of corpses already ! 

Twice in the fore-part of the night the clouds overhead parted for 
a little, and let the blessed moonlight down upon us. On the first 
of those occasions, I myself served out the last drops of fresh water 
we had left. The two women — poor suffering creatures ! — were 
past drinking. Miss Coleshaw shivered a little when I moistened 
her lips with the water ; and Mrs. Atherfield, when I did the same 
for her, drew her breath with a faint, fluttering sigh, which was 
just enough to show that she was not dead yet. The captain stdl 
lay as he had lain ever since I got on board the boat. The others, 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 113 

both passengers and crew, managed for the most part to swallow 
their share of the water — the men being just sufficiently roused 
by it to get up on their knees, while the moonlight lasted, and look 
about wildly over the ocean for a chance of seeing the ship again. 
When the clouds gathered once more, they crouched back in their 
places with a long groan of despair. Hearing that, and dreading 
the effect of the pitchy darkness (to say nothing of the fierce wind 
and sea) on their sinking spirits, I resolved to combat their despond- 
ency,, if it were still possible to contend against it, by giving them 
something to do. First telling them that no man could say at 
what time of the night the ship (in case she was ^steering our course) 
might forge ahead of us, or how near she might be when she passed, 
I recommended that all who had the strength should join their 
voices at regular intervals, and shout their loudest when the boat 
rose highest on the waves, on the chance of that cry of distress 
being borne by the wind within hearing of the watch on board the 
ship. It is unnecessary to say that I knew well how near it was to 
an absolute impossibility that this last feeble exertion on our parts 
could lead to any result. I only proposed it because I was driven 
to the end of my resources to keep up the faintest flicker of spirit 
among the men. They received my proposal with more warmth 
and readiness than I had ventured, in their hopeless state, to expect 
from them. Up to the turn of midnight they resolutely raised their 
voices with me, at intervals of from five to ten minutes, whenever 
the boat was tossed highest on the waves. The wind seemed to 
whirl our weak cries savagely out of our mouths almost before we 
could utter them. I, sitting astern in the boat, only heard them, 
as it seemed, for something like an instant of time. But even that 
was enough to make me creep all over — the cry was so forlorn and 
fearful. Of all the dreadful sounds I had heard since the first strik- 
ing of the ship, that shrill wail of despair — rising on the wave- 
tops, one moment ; whirled away the next, into the black night — 
was the most frightful that entered my ears. There are times, even 
now, when it seems to be ringing in them still. 

Whether our first gleam of moonshine fell upon old Mr. Rarx, 
while he was sleeping, and helped to upset his weak brains al- 
together, is more than I can say. But, for some reason or other, 
before the clouds parted and let the light down on us for the second 
time, and while we were driving along awfully through the black- 
est of the night, he stirred in his place, and began rambling and 
raving again more vehemently than ever. To hear him now, — 
that is to say, as well as I could hear him for the wind, — he was 
still down in his gold-mine; but was laden so heavy with his 
precious metal that he could not get out, and was in mortal peril 



114 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

of being drowned by the water rising in the bottom of the shaft. 
So far, his maundering attracted my attention disagreeably, and 
did no more. But when he began — if I may say so — to take 
the name of the dear little dead child in vain, and to mix her up 
with himself and his miserly greed of gain, I got angry and called 
to the men forward to give him a shake and make him hold his 
tongue. Whether any of them obeyed or not, I don't know — 
Mr. Rarx went on raving louder than ever. The shrill wind was 
now hardly more shrill than he. He swore he saw the white 
frock of our poor little lost pet fluttering in the daylight, at the 
top of the mine, and he screamed out to her in a great fright that 
the gold was heavy, and the water rising fast, and that she must 
come down quick as lightning if she meant to be in time to help 
them. I called again angrily to the men to silence him ; and just 
as I did so, the clouds began to part for the second time, and the 
white tip of the moon grew visible. 

" There she is ! " screeches Mr. Rarx ; and I saw him by the 
faint light, scramble on his knees in the bottom of the boat, and 
wave a ragged old handkerchief up at the moon. 

" Pull him down ! " I called out. "Down with him; and tie 
his arms and legs ! " 

Of the men who could still move about, not one paid any atten- 
tion to me. They were all upon their knees again, looking out in 
the strengthening moonlight for a sight of the ship. 

" Quick, Golden Lucy ! " screams Mr. Rarx, and creeps under 
the thwarts right forward into the bows of the boat. " Quick ! 
my darling, my beauty, quick ! The gold is heavy, and the water 
rises fast ! Come down and save me. Golden Lucy ! Let all the 
rest of the world drown, and save me ! Me ! me ! me ! me ! " 

He shouted these last words out at the top of his cracked, croak- 
ing voice, and got on his feet, as I conjectured (for the coat we 
had spread for a sail now hid him from me) in the bows of the 
boat. Not one of the crew so much as looked round at liim, so 
eagerly were their eyes seeking for the ship. The man sitting by 
me was sunk in a deep sleep. If I had left the helm for a moment 
in that wind and sea, it would have been the death of every soul 
of us. I shouted desperately to the raving wretch to sit down. 
A screech that seemed to cut the very wind in two answered me. 
A huge wave tossed the boat's head up wildly at the same mo- 
ment. I looked aside to leeward as the wash of the great roller 
swept by us, gleaming of a lurid, bluish white in the moonbeams ; 
I looked and saw, in one second of time, the face of Mr. Rarx rush 
past on the wave, with the foam seething in his hair and the moon 
shining in his eyes. Before I could draw my breath he was a 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 115 

hundred yards astern of us, and the night and the sea had swal- 
lowed him up and had hid his secret, which he had kept all the 
voyage, from our mortal curiosity, for ever. 

" He's gone ! he's drowned ! " I shouted to the men forward. 

None of them took any notice ; none of them left off looking out 
over the ocean for a sight of the ship. Nothing that I could say 
on the subject of our situation at that fearful time can, in my opin- 
ion, give such an idea of the extremity and the Rightfulness of it, 
as the relation of this one fact. I leave it to speak by itself the 
sad and shocking truth, and pass on gladly to the telling of what 
happened next, at a later hour of the night. 

After the clouds had shut out the moon again, the wind dropped 
a little and shifted a point or two, so as to shape our course nearer 
to the eastward. How the hours passed after that, till the dawn 
came, is more than I can tell. The nearer the time of daylight 
approached the more completely everything seemed to drop out of 
my mind, except the one thought of where the ship we had seen 
in the evening might be, when we looked for her with the morning 
light. 

It came at last — that grey, quiet light which was to end all our 
uncertainty ; which was to show us if we were saved, or to warn 
us if we were to prepare for death. With the first streak in the east, 
every one of the boat's company, except the sleeping and the 
senseless, roused up and looked out in breathless silence upon the 
sea. Slowly and slowly the daylight strengthened, and the dark- 
ness rolled off farther and farther before it over the face of the 
waters. The first pale flush of the sun flew trembling along the 
paths of light broken through the grey wastes of the eastern clouds. 
We could look clearly — we could see far ; and there, ahead of us 
— ! merciful, bountiful providence of God ! — there was the 
ship ! 

I have honestly owned the truth, and confessed to the human 
infirmity under suffering of myself, my passengers, and my crew. 
I have earned, therefore, as I would fain hope, the right to record 
it to the credit of all, that the men, the moment they set eyes on 
the ship, poured out their whole heart in humble thanksgiving to 
the Divine Mercy which had saved them from the very jaws of 
death. They did not wait for me to bid them do this ; they did 
it of their own accord, in their own language, fervently, earnestly, 
with one will and one heart. 

We had hardly made the ship out — a fine brigantine, hoisting 
English colours — before we observed that her crew suddenly hove 
her up in the wind. At first we were at a loss to understand this ; 
but as we drew nearer, we discovered that she was getting the Surf- 



116 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

boat (which had kept ahead of us all through the night) alongside 
of her, under the lee bow. My men tried to cheer when they saw 
their companions in safety, but their weak cries died away in tears 
and sobbing. 

In another half-hour we, too, were alongside of the brigantine. 

From this point I recollect nothing very distinctly. I remem- 
ber faintly many loud voices and eager faces ; — I remember fresh 
strong willing fellows, with a colour in their cheeks, and a smart- 
ness in their movements that seemed quite preternatural to me 
at that time, hanging over us in the rigging of the brigantine, and 
dropping down from her sides into our boat ; — I remember trying 
with my feeble hands to help them in the difficult atld perilous 
task of getting the two poor women and the captain on board ; — 
I remember one dark hairy giant of a man swearing that it was 
enough to break his heart, and catching me in his arms like a 
child — and from that moment I remember nothing more with the 
slightest certainty for over a week of time. 

When I came to my own senses again, in my cot on board the 
brigantine my first inquiries were naturally for my fellow-sufferers. 
Two — a passenger in the Long-boat, and one of the crew of the 
Surf-boat — had sunk in spite of all the care that could be taken 
of them. The rest were likely, with time and attention, to recover. 
Of those who have been particularly mentioned in this narrative, 
Mrs. Atherfield had shown signs of rallying the soonest ; Miss Cole- 
shaw, who had held out longer against exhaustion, was now the 
slower to recover. Captain Ravender, though slowly mending, was 
still not able to speak or to move in his cot without help. The 
sacrifices for us all which this good man had so nobly undergone, 
not only in the boat, but before that, when he had deprived him- 
self of his natural rest on the dark nights that preceded the wreck 
of the Golden Mary, had sadly undermined his natural strength of 
constitution. He, the heartiest of all, when we sailed from Eng- 
land, was now, through his unwearying devotion to his duty and 
to us, the last to recover, the longest to linger between life and 
death. 

My next questions (when they helped me on deck to get my first 
blessed breath of fresh air) related to the vessel that had saved us. 
She was bound to the Columbia River — a long way to the north- 
ward of the port for which we had sailed in the Golden Mary. 
Most providentially for us, shortly after we had lost sight of the 
brigantine in the shades of the evening, she had been caught in a 
squall, and had sprung her foretopmast badly. This accident had 
obHged them to lay-to for some hours, while they did their best to 
secure the spar, and had warned them, when they continued on 



THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 117 

their course, to keep the ship under easy sail through the night. 
But for this circumstance we must, in all human probability, have 
been too far astern when the morning dawned, to have had the 
slightest chance of being discovered. 

Excepting always some of the stoutest of our men, the next of 
the Long-boat's company who was helped on deck was Mrs. Ather- 
field. Poor soul ! when she and I first looked at each other, I 
could see that her heart went back to the early days of our voyage, 
when the Golden Lucy and I used to have our game of hide-and- 
seek round the mast. She squeezed my hand as hard as she coulcl 
with her wasted trembling fingers, and looke^l up piteously in my 
face, as if she would like to speak to little Lucy's playfellow, but 
dared not trust herself — then turned away quickly and laid her 
head against the bulwarks, and looked out upon the desolate sea 
that was nothing to her now but her darling's grave. I was better 
pleased when I saw her later in the day, sitting by Captain Raven- 
der's cot ; for she seemed to take comfort in nursing him. Miss 
Coleshaw soon afterwards got strong enough to relieve her at this 
duty; and, between them, they did the captain such a world of 
good, both in body and spirit, that he also got strong enough before 
long to come on deck, and to thank me, in his old generous self- 
forgetful way, for having done my duty — the duty which I had 
learnt how to do by his example. 

Hearing what our destination had been when we sailed from 
England, the captain of the brigantine (who had treated us with 
the most unremitting attention and kindness, and had been warmly 
seconded in his eff'orts for our good by all the people under his com- 
mand) volunteered to go sufficiently out of his course to enable us 
to speak the first Californian coasting- vessel sailing in the direction 
of San Francisco. We were lucky in meeting with one of these 
sooner than we expected. Three days after parting from the kind 
captain of the brigantine, we, the surviving passengers and crew of 
the Golden Mary, touched the firm ground once more, on the 
shores of California. 

We were hardly collected here before we were obliged to separate 
again. Captain Ravender, though he was hardly yet in good trav- 
elling trim, accompanied Mrs. Atherfield inland, to see her safe 
under her husband's protection. Miss Coleshaw went with them, 
to stay with Mrs. Atherfield for a little while before she attempted 
to proceed with any matters of her own which had brought her to 
this part of the world. The rest of us, who were left behind with 
nothing particular to do until the captain's return, followed the 
passengers to the gold-diggings. Some few of us had enough of 
the life there in a very short time. The rest seemed bitten by 



118 THE WRECK OF THE GOLDEN MARY. 

old Mr. Rarx's mania for gold, and insisted on stopping behind when 
Rames and I proposed going back to the port. We two, and five 
of our steadiest seamen, were all the oflBcers and crew left to meet 
the captain on his return from the inland country. 

He reported that he had left Mrs. Atherfield and Miss Cole- 
shaw safe and comfortable under Mr. Atherfield's care. They 
sent affectionate messages to all of us, and especially (I am proud 
to say) to me. After hearing this good news, there seemed noth- 
ing better to do than to ship on board the first vessel bound for 
England. There were plenty in port, ready to sail, and only wait- 
ing for the men belonging to them who had deserted to the gold- 
diggings. We were all snapped up eagerly, and offered any rate 
we chose to set on our services, the moment we made known our 
readiness to ship for England — all, I ought to have said, except 
Captain Ravender, who went along with us in the capacity of 
passenger only. 

Nothing of any moment occurred on the voyage back. The 
captain and I got ashore at Gravesend safe and hearty, and went 
up to London as fast as the train could carry us, to report the 
calamity that had occurred to the owners of the Golden Mary. 
When that duty had been performed. Captain Ravender went 
back to his own house at Poplar, and I travelled to the AVest of 
England to report myself to my old father and mother. 

Here I might well end all these pages of writing ; but I cannot 
refrain from adding a few more sentences, to tell the reader what 
I am sure he will be glad to hear. In the summer-time of this 
present year eighteen hundred and fifty-six, I happened to be at 
New York, and having spare time on my hands, and spare cash in 
my pocket, I walked into one of the biggest and grandest of their 
ordinaries there, to have my dinner. I had hardly sat down at 
table, before who should I see opposite but Mrs. Atherfield, as 
bright-eyed and pretty as ever, wdth a gentleman on her right 
hand, and on her left — another Golden Lucy ! Her hair was a 
shade or two darker than the hair of my poor little pet of past sad 
times ; but in all other respects the living child reminded me so 
strongly of the dead, that I quite started at the first sight of her. 
I could not tell, if I was to try, how happy we were after dinner, 
or how much we had to say to each other. I was introduced to 
Mrs. Atherfield's husband, and heard from him, among other 
things, that Miss Coleshaw was married to her old sweetheart, 
who had fallen into misfortunes and errors, and whom she was de- 
termined to set right by giving him the great chance in life of get- 
ting a good wife. They were settled in America, like Mr. and Mrs. 
Atherfield — these last and the child being on their way, when I 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 119 

met them, to visit a friend living in the northernmost part of the 
States. 

With the relation of this circumstance, and with my personal 
testimony to the good health and spirits of Captain Ravender the 
last time I saw him, ends all that I have to say in connection with 
the subject of the Wreck of the Golden Mary, and the Great 
Deliverance of her People at Sea. 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

IN THREE CHAPTEBS. 

Chapter I. 

THE ISLAND OF SILVER-STORE. 

It was in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and 
forty-four, that I, Gill Davis to command. His Mark, having then 
the honour to be a private in the Royal Marines, stood a leaning over 
the bulwarks of the armed sloop Christopher Columbus, in the 
South American waters off the Mosquito shore. 

My lady remarks to me, before I go any further, that there is 
no such Christian name as Gill, and that her confident opinion is, 
that the name given to me in the baptism wherein I was made, &c., 
was Gilbert. She is certain to be right, but I never heard of it. 
I was a foundling child, picked up somewhere or another, and I 
always understood my Christian name to be Gill. It is true that 
I was called Gills when employed at Snorridge Bottom betwixt 
Chatham and Maidstone, to frighten birds ; but that had nothing 
to do with the baptism wherein I was made, &c., and wherein a 
number of things were promised for me by somebody, who let me 
alone ever afterwards as to performing any of them, and who, I 
consider, must have been the Beadle. Such name of Gills was 
entirely owing to my cheeks, or gills, which at that time of my life 
were of a raspy description. 

My lady stops me again, before I go any further, by laughing ex- 
actly in her old way and waving the feather of her pen at me. That 
action on her part, calls to my mind as I look at her hand with the 
rings on it — Well ! I won't ! To be sure it will come in, in its 
own place. But it's always strange to me, noticing the quiet hand, 
and noticing it (as I have done, you know, so many times) a fondling 
children and grandchildren asleep, to think that when blood and 
honour were up — There ! I won't ! not at present ! — Scratch it out. 



120 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

She won't scratch it out, and quite honourable ; because we have 
made an understanding that everything is to be taken down, and 
that nothing that is once taken down shall be scratched out. I 
have the great misfortune not to be able to read and write, and I 
am speaking my true and faithful account of those Adventures, and 
my lady is writing it, word for word. 

I say, there I was, a leaning over the bulwarks of the sloop 
Christopher Columbus in the South American waters off the 
Mosquito shore: a subject of His Gracious Majesty King George of 
England, and a private in the Royal Marines. 

In those climates, you don't want to do much. I was doing 
nothing, I was thinking of the shepherd (my father, I wonder ?) 
on the hill-sides by Snorridge Bottom, with a long staff, and with a 
rough white coat in all weathers all the year round, who used to 
let me lie in a corner of his hut by night, and who used to let me 
go about with him and his sheep by day when I could get nothing 
else to do, and who used to give me so little of his victuals and so 
much of his staff, that I ran away from him — which was what he 
wanted all along, I expect — to be knocked about the world in 
preference to Snorridge Bottom. I had been knocked about the 
world for nine-and-twenty years in all, when I stood looking along 
those bright blue South American waters. Looking after the shep- 
herd, I may say. Watching him in a half-waking dream, with my 
eyes half shut, as he, and his flock of sheep, and his two dogs, 
seemed to move away from the ship's side, far away over the blue 
water, and go right down into the sky. 

"It's rising out of the water, steady," a voice said close to me. 
I had been thinking on so, that it like woke me with a start, 
though it was no stranger voice than the voice of Harry Charker, 
my own comrade. 

" What's rising out of the water, steady ? " I asked my comrade. 

" What 1 " says he. " The Island." 

" ! The Island ! " says I, turning my eyes towards it. " True. 
I forgot the Island." 

" Forgot the port you're going to ? That's odd, an't it ? " 

" It is odd," says I. 

" And odd," he said, slowly considering with himself, " an't even. 
Is it. Gill?" 

He had always a remark just like that to make, and seldom 
another. As soon as he had brought a thing round to what it was 
not, he was satisfied. He was one of the best of men, and, in a 
certain sort of a way, one with the least to say for himself. I 
qualify it, because, besides being able to read and write like a Quar- 
ter-master, he had always one most excellent idea in his mind. 




im'm 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 123 

'That was, Duty. Upon ray soul, I don't believe, though I admire 
learning beyond everything, that he could have got a better idea 
out of all the books in the world, if he had learnt them every word, 
and been the cleverest of scholars. 

My comrade and I had been quartered in Jamaica, and from 
there we had been drafted off to the British settlement of Belize, 
lying away West and North of the Mosquito coast. At Belize 
there had been great alarm of one cruel gang of pirates (there were 
always more pirates than enough in those Caribl^an Seas), and as 
chey got the better of our English cruisers by running into out-of- 
the-way creeks and shallows, and taking the land when they were 
liotly pressed, the governor of Belize had received orders from home 
to keep a sharp look-out for them along shore. Now, there was 
an armed sloop came once a year from Port Royal, Jamaica, to the 
Island, laden with all manner of necessaries, to eat and to drink, and 
to wear, and to use in various ways ; and it was aboard of that sloop 
which had touched at Belize, that I was a standing, leaning over 
the bulwarks. 

The Island was occupied by a very small English colony. It had 
been given the name of Silver-Store. The reason of its being so 
called, was, that the English colony owned and worked a silver 
mine over on the mainland, in Honduras, and used this Island as a 
safe and convenient place to store their silver in, until it was annu- 
ally fetched away by the sloop. It was brought down from the 
mine to the coast on the backs of mules, attended by friendly 
Indians and guarded by white men ; from thence, it was conveyed 
over to Silver-Store, when the weather was fair, in the canoes of that 
country ; from Silver-Store, it was carried to Jamaica by the armed 
sloop once a year, as I have already mentioned ; from Jamaica it 
went, of course, all over the world. 

How I came to be aboard the armed sloop, is easily told. Four- 
and- twenty marines under command of a lieutenant — that officer's 
name was Linderwood — had been told off at Belize, to proceed to 
Silver-Store, in aid of boats and seamen stationed there for the chace 
of the pirates. The Island was considered a good post of observation 
against the pirates, both by land and sea ; neither the pirate ship 
nor yet her boats had been seen by any of us, but they had been so 
much heard of, that the reinforcement was sent. Of that party, I 
was one. It included a corporal and a serjeant. Charker was 
corporal, and the Serjeant's name was Drooce. He was the most 
tyrannical non-commissioned officer in His Majesty's service. 

The night came on, soon after I had had the foregoing words with 
Charker. All the wonderful bright colours went out of the sea and 
sky, in a few minutes, and all the stars in the Heavens seemed to 



124 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

shine out together, and to look down at themselves in the sea, over 
one another's shoulders, millions deep. Next morning, we cast 
anchor off the Island. There was a snug harbour within a little 
reef ; there was a sandy beach ; there were cocoa-nut trees with 
high straight stems, quite bare, and foliage at the top like plumes 
of magnificent green feathers ; there were all tlie objects that are 
usually seen in those parts, and I am not going to describe them, 
having something else to tell about. 

Great rejoicings, to be sure, were made on our arrival. All the 
flags in the place were hoisted, all the guns in the place were fired, 
and all the people in the place came down to look at us. One of 
those Sambo fellows — they call those natives Sambos, when they 
are half-negro and half-Indian — had come off outside the reef, to 
pilot us in, and remained on board after we had let go our anchor. 
He was called Christian George King, and was fonder of all hands 
than anybody else was. Now, I confess, for myself, that on that 
first day, if I had been captain of the Christopher Columbus, 
instead of private in the Royal Marines, I should have kicked 
Christain George King — who was no more a Christian, than he 
was a King, or a George — over the side, without exactly know- 
ing why, except that it was the right thing to do. 

But, I must likewise confess, that I was not in a particularly 
pleasant humour, when I stood under arms that morning, aboard 
the Christopher Columbus in the harbour of the Island of Silver- 
Store. I had had a hard life, and the life of the English on the 
Island seemed too easy and too gay, to please me. "Here you are," 
I thought to myself, "good scholars and good livers; able to read 
what you like, able to write what you like, able to eat and drink 
what you like, and spend what you like, and do what you like ; and 
much you care for a poor, ignorant Private in the Royal Marines ! 
Yet it's hard, too, I think, that you should have all the half-pence, 
and I all the kicks ; you all the smooth, and I all the rough ; you 
all the oil, and I all the vinegar." It was as envious a thing to 
think as might be, let alone its being nonsensical ; but, I thought 
it. I took it so much amiss, that, when a very beautiful young 
English lady came aboard, I grunted to myself, "Ah ! you have got 
a lover, I'll be bound ! " As if there was any new offence to me in 
that, if she had ! 

She was sister to the captain of our sloop, who had been in a 
poor way for some time, and who was so ill then that he was obliged 
to be carried ashore. She was the child of a military officer, and 
had come out there with her sister, who was married to one of the 
owners of the silver-mine, and who had three children with her. It 
was easy to see that she was the light and spirit of the Island. 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 125 

After I had got a good look at her, I grunted to myself again, in an 
even worse state of mind than before, " I'll be damned, if I don't 
hate him, whoever he is ! " 

My officer, Lieutenant Linderwood, was as ill as the captain of 
the sloop, and was carried ashore, too. They were both young men 
of about my age, who had been delicate in the West India climate. 
I even took that, in bad part. I thought I was much fitter for 
the work than they were, and that if all of us had our deserts, I 
should be both of them rolled into one. (It may be imagined wliat 
sort of an officer of marines I should have made, without the power 
of reading a written order. And as to any knowledge how to com- 
mand the sloop — Lord ! I should have sunk her in a quarter of 
an hour !) 

However, such were my reflections; and when we men were 
ashore and dismissed, I strolled about the place along with Char- 
ker, making my observations in a similar spirit. 

It was a pretty place : in all its arrangements partly South Ameri- 
can and partly English, and very agreeable to look at on that ac- 
count, being like a bit of home that had got chipped off and had 
floated away to that spot, accommodating itself to circumstances as 
it drifted along. The huts of the Sambos, to the number of five-and- 
twenty, perhaps, were down by the beach to the left of the anchor- 
age. On the right was a sort of barrack, with a South American 
Flag and the Union Jack, flying from the same staff", where the little 
English colony could all come together, if they saw occasion. It was 
a walled square of building, with a sort of pleasure-ground inside, 
and inside that again a sunken block like a powder magazine, with 
a little square trench round it, and steps down to the door. Char- 
ker and I were looking in at the gate, which was not guarded ; and 
I had said to Charker, in reference to the bit like a powder maga- 
zine, " That's where they keep the silver, you see ; " and Charker had 
said to me, after thinking it over, " And silver an't gold. Is it. Gill 1 " 
when the beautiful young English lady I had been so bilious about, 
looked out of a door, or a window — at all events looked out, from 
under a bright awning. She no sooner saw us two in uniform, than 
she came out so quickly that she was still putting on her broad 
Mexican hat of plaited straw when we saluted. 

"Would you like to come in," she said, "and see the place? It 
is rather a curious place." 

We thanked the young lady, and said we didn't wish to be 
troublesome ; but, she said it could be no trouble to an English 
soldier's daughter, to show English soldiers how their countrymen 
and countrywomen fared, so far away from England ; and conse- 
quently we saluted again, and went in. Then, as we stood in the 



126 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

shade, she showed us (being as affable as beautiful), how the dif- 
ferent families lived in their separate houses, and how there was a 
general house for stores, and a general reading-room, and a general 
room for music and dancing, and a room for Church; and how 
there were other houses on the rising ground called the Signal Hill, 
where they lived in the hotter weather. 

"Your officer has been carried up there," she said, "and my 
brother, too, for the better air. At present, our few residents are 
dispersed over both spots : deducting, that is to say, such of our 
number as are always going to, or coming from, or staying at, the 
mine." 

("ZTe is among one of those parties," I thought, "and I wish 
somebody would knock his head off.") 

" Some of our married ladies live here," she said, " during at least 
half the year, as lonely as widows, with their children." 

" Many children here, ma'am ? " 

"Seventeen. There are thirteen married ladies, and there are 
eight like me." 

There were not eight like her — there was not one like her — in 
the world. She meant, single. 

"Which, with about thirty Englishmen of various degrees," said 
the young lady, " form the little colony now on the Island. I don't 
count the sailors, for they don't belong to us, Nor the soldiers," she 
gave us a gracious smile when she spoke of the soldiers, "for the 
same reason." 

" Nor the Sambos, ma'am," said I. 

" No." 

"Under your favour, and with your leave, ma'am," said I, "are 
they trustworthy 1 " 

" Perfectly ! We are all very kind to them, and they are very 
grateful to us." 

" Indeed, ma'am 1 Now — Christian George King ? " 

"Very much attached to us all. Would die for us." 

She was, as in my uneducated way I have observed very beauti- 
ful women almost always to be, so composed, that her composure 
gave great weight to what she said, and I believed it. 

Then, she pointed out to us the building like a powder magazine, 
and explained to us in what manner the silver was brought from 
the mine, and was brought over from the mainland, and was stored 
there. The Christopher Columbus would have a rich lading, she 
said, for there had been a great yield that year, a much richer yield 
than usual, and there was a chest of jewels besides the silver. 

When we had looked about us, and were getting sheepish, through 
fearing we were troublesome, she turned us over to a young woman, 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 127 

English born but West India bred, who served her as her maid. 
This young woman was the widow of a non-commissioned officer 
in a regiment of the line. She had got married and widowed at 
St. Vincent, with only a few months between the two events. 
She was a little saucy woman, with a bright pair of eyes, rather 
a neat little foot and figure, and rather a neat little turned-up 
nose. The sort of young woman, I considered at the time, who 
appeared to invite you to give her a kiss, and who would have 
slapped your face if you accepted the invitation. 

I couldn't make out her name at first ; for, when she gave it in 
answer to my inquiry, it sounded like Beltot, which didn't sound 
right. But, when we came better acquainted -^ which was while 
Charker and I were drinking sugar-cane sangaree, which she made 
in a most excellent manner — I found that her Christian name was 
Isabella, which they shortened into Bell, and that the name of the 
deceased non-commissioned officer was Tott. Being the kind of neat 
little woman it was natural to make a toy of — I never saw a woman 
so like a toy in my life — she had got the plaything name of Bell- 
tott. In short, she had no other name on the Island. Even Mr. 
Commissioner Pordage (and he was a grave one !) formally addressed 
her as Mrs. Belltott. But, I shall come to Mr. Commissioner Por- 
dage presently. 

The name of the captain of the sloop was Captain Maryon, and 
therefore it was no news to hear from Mrs. Belltott, that his sis- 
ter, the beautiful unmarried young English lady, was Miss Maryon. 
The novelty was, that her Christian name was Marion too. Mar- 
ion Maryon. Many a time I have run off those two names in my 
thoughts, like a bit of verse. many, and many, and many, a 
time ! 

We saw out all the drink that was produced, like good men and 
true, and then took our leaves, and went down to the beach. The 
weather was beautiful; the wind steady, low, and gentle; the Island, 
a picture ; the sea, a picture ; the sky, a picture. In that country 
there are two rainy seasons in the year. One sets in at about our 
English Midsummer ; the other, about a fortnight after our Eng- 
lish Michaelmas. It was the beginning of August at that time ; 
the first of these rainy seasons was well over ; and everything was 
in its most beautiful growth, and had its loveliest look upon it. 

" They enjoy themselves here," I says to Charker, turning surly 
again. " This is better than private-soldiering." 

We had come down to the beach, to be friendly with the boat's- 
crew who were camped and hutted there ; and we were approach- 
ing towards their quarters over the sand, when Christian George 
King comes up from the landing-place at a wolf's-trot, crying, 



128 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

" Yup, So- Jeer ! " — which was that Sambo Pilot's barbarous way 
of saying, Hallo, Soldier ! I have stated myself to be a man of no 
learning, and, if I entertain prejudices, I hope allowance may be 
made. I will now confess to one. It may be a right one or it 
may be a wrong one ; but, I never did like Natives, except in the 
form of oysters. 

So, when Christian George King, who was individually unpleas- 
ant to me besides, comes a trotting along the sand, clucking "Yup, 
So-Jeer ! " I had a thundering good mind to let fly at him with my 
right. I certainly should have done it, but that it would have 
exposed me to reprimand. 

" Yup, So-Jeer ! " says he. " Bad job." 

" What do you mean 1 " says I. 

" Yup, So-Jeer ! " says he. " Ship leakee." 

"Ship leaky?" says I. 

"Iss," says he, with a nod that looked as if it was jerked out 
of him by a most violent hiccup — which is the way with those 
savages. 

I cast my eyes at Charker, and we both heard the pumps going 
aboard the sloop, and saw the signal run up, " Come on board ; 
hands wanted from the shore." In no time some of the sloop's 
liberty-men were already running down to the water's edge, and 
the party of seamen, under orders against the pirates, were put- 
ting off to the Columbus in two boats. 

" Oh Christian George King sar berry sorry ! " says that Sambo 
vagabond, then. "Christian George King cry, English fashion!" 
His English fashion of crying was to screw his black knuckles into 
his eyes, howl like a dog, and roll himself on his back on the sand. 
It was trying not to kick him, but I gave Charker the word, 
"Double-quick, Harry!" and we got down to the water's edge, 
and got on board the sloop. 

By some means or other, she had sprung such a leak, that no 
pumping would keep her free ; and what between the two fears that 
she would go down in the harbour, and that, even if she did not, all 
the supplies she had brought for the colony would be destroyed by 
the sea- water as it rose in her, there was great confusion. In the 
midst of it. Captain Maryon was heard hailing from the beach. He 
had been carried down in his hammock, and looked very bad ; but, 
he insisted on being stood there on his feet; and I saw him, my- 
self, come off in the boat, sitting upright in the stern-sheets, as if 
nothing was wrong with him. 

A quick sort of council was held, and Captain Maryon soon re- 
solved that we must all fall to work to get the cargo out, and, that 
when that was done, the guns and heavy matters must be got out, 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 129 

and that the sloop must be hauled ashore, and careened, and the 
leak stopped. We were all mustered (the pirate-chace party vol- 
unteering), and told off into parties, with so many hours of spell 
and so many hours of relief, and we all went at it with a will. 
Christian George King was entered one of the party in which I 
worked, at his own request, and he went at it with as good a will 
as any of the rest. He went at it with so much heartiness, to say 
the truth, that he rose in my good opinion, almost as fast as the 
water rose in the ship. Which was fast enough, and faster. 

Mr. Commissioner Pordage kept in a red and black japanned box, 
like a family lump-sugar box, some document or other which some 
Sambo chief or other had got drunk and spilt some ink over (as well 
as I could understand the matter), and by that means had given up 
lawful possession of the Island. Through having hold of this box, 
Mr. Pordage got his title of Commissioner. He was styled Consul, 
too, and spoke of himself as "Government." 

He was a stiff-jointed, high-nosed old gentleman, without an 
ounce of fat on him, of a very angiy temper and a very yellow 
complexion. Mrs. Commissioner Pordage, making allowance for 
difference of sex, was much the same. Mr. Kitten, a small, young- 
ish, bald, botanical and mineralogical gentleman, also connected with 
the mine — but everybody there was that, more or less — was some- 
times callen by Mr. Commissioner Pordage, his Vice-commissioner, 
and sometimes his Deputy-consul. Or sometimes he spoke of Mr. 
Kitten, merely as being "under Government," 

The beach was beginning to be a lively scene with the prepara- 
tions for careening the sloop, and, with cargo, and spars, and rig- 
ging, and water-casks, dotted about it, and with temporary quarters 
for the men rising up there out of such sails and odds and ends as 
could be best set on one side to make them, when Mr. Commissioner 
Pordage comes down in a high fluster, and asks for Captain Mary on. 
The Captain, ill as he was, was slung in his hammock betwixt two 
trees, that he might direct ; and he raised his head, and answered 
for himself. 

"Captain Maryon," cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage, "this is 
not official. This is not regular." 

" Sir," says the Captain, " it hath been arranged with the clerk 
and supercargo, that you should be communicated with, and re- 
quested to render any little assistance that may lie in your power. 
I am quite certain that hath been duly done." 

"Captain Maryon," replies Mr. Commissioner Pordage, "there 
hath been no written correspondence. No documents have passed, 
no memoranda have been made, no minutes have been made, no 
entries and counter-entries appear in the official muniments. This 



130 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

is indecent. I call upon you, sir, to desist, until all is regular, or 
Government will take this up." 

"Sir," said Captain Maryon, chafing a little, as he looked out of 
his hammock ; " between the chances of Government taking this 
up, and my ship taking herself down, I much prefer to trust 
myself to the former." 

" You do, sir ? " cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage. 

"I do, sir," says Captain Maryon, lying down again. 

" Then, Mr. Kitten," says the Commissioner, "send up instantly 
for my Diplomatic coat." 

He was dressed in a linen suit at that moment ; but, Mr. Kitten 
started off himself and brought down the Diplomatic coat, which 
was a blue cloth one, gold-laced, and with a crown on the button. 

"Now, Mr. Kitten," says Pordage, "I instruct you, as Vice- 
commissioner, and Deputy-consul of this place, to demand of Cap- 
tain Maryon, of the sloop Christopher Columbus, whether he drives 
me to the act of putting this coat on ? " 

" Mr. Pordage," says Captain Maryon, looking out of his ham- 
mock again, "as I can hear what you say, I can answer it with- 
out troubling the gentleman. I should be sorry that you should 
be at the pains of putting on too hot a coat on my account ; but, 
otherwise, you may put it on hind-side before, or inside-out, or 
with your legs in the sleeves, or your head in the skirts, for any 
objection that I have to offer to your thoroughly pleasing yourself." 

" Very good, Captain Maryon," says Pordage, in a tremendous 
passion. "Very good, sir. Be the consequences on your own 
head ! Mr. Kitten, as it has come to this, help me on with it." 

When he had given that order, he walked off in the coat, and all 
our names were taken, and I was afterwards told that Mr. Kitten 
wrote from his dictation more than a bushel of large paper on the 
subject, which cost more before it was done with, than ever could 
be calculated, and which only got done with after all, by being 
lost. 

Our work went on merrily, nevertheless, and the Christopher 
Columbus, hauled up, lay helpless on her side like a great fish out 
of water. While she was in that state, there was a feast, or a ball, 
or an entertainment, or more properly all three together, given us 
in honour of the ship, and the ship's company, and the other visit- 
ors. At that assembly, I believe, I saw all the inhabitants then 
upon the Island, without any exception. I took no particular 
notice of more than a few, but I found it very agreeable in that 
little corner of the world to see the children, who were of all ages, 
and mostly very pretty — as they mostly are. There was one 
handsome elderly lady, with very dark eyes and grey hair, that I 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 131 

inquired about. I was told that her name was Mrs. Venning ; and 
her married daughter, a fair slight thing, was pointed out to me by 
the name of Fanny Fisher. Quite a child she looked, with a little 
copy of herself holding to her dress ; and her husband, just come 
back from the mine, exceeding proud of her. They were a good- 
looking set of people on the whole, but I didn't like them. I was 
out of sorts ; in conversation with Charker, I found fault with all 
of them. I said of Mrs. Venning, she was proud ; of Mrs. Fisher, 
she was a delicate little baby-fool. What did I think of this one ? 
Why, he w^as a fine gentleman. What did I say to that one? 
Why, she was a fine lady. What could you expect them to be (I 
asked Charker), nursed in that climate, with the tropical night 
shining for them, musical instruments playing to them, great trees 
bending over them, soft lamps lighting them, fire-flies sparkling in 
among them, bright flowers and birds brought into existence to 
please their eyes, delicious drinks to be had for the pouring out^ 
delicious fruits to be got for the picking, and every one dancing 
and murmuring happily in the scented air, with the sea breaking 
low on the reef for a pleasant chorus. 

" Fine gentlemen and fine ladies, Harry ? " I says to Charker. 
"Yes, I think so! Dolls! Dolls! Not the sort of stuff for 
wear, that comes of poor private soldiering in the Royal Marine ! " 

However, I could not gainsay that they were very hospitable 
people, and that they treated us uncommonly well. Every man of 
us was at the entertainment, and Mrs. Belltott had more partners 
than she could dance with : though she danced all night, too. As 
to Jack (whether of the Christopher Columbus, or of the pirate 
pursuit party, it made no difference), he danced with his brother 
Jack, danced with himself, danced with the moon, the stars, the 
trees, the prospect, anything. I didn't greatly take to the chief- 
officer of that party, with his bright eyes, brown face, and easy 
figure. I didn't much like his way when he first happened to 
come where we were, with Miss Maryon on his arm. " Oh, Cap- 
tain Carton," she says, " here are two friends of mine ! " He says, 
"Indeed? These tw^o Marines?" — meaning Charker and self. 
" Yes," says she, " I showed these two friends of mine when they 
first came, all the wonders of Silver-Store." He gave us a laugh- 
ing look, and says he, " You are in luck, men. I would be disrated 
and go before the mast to-morrow^, to be shown the way upward 
again by such a guide. You are in luck, men." When we had 
saluted, and he and the young lady had waltzed away, I said, 
" You are a pretty fellow, too, to talk of luck. You may go to 
the Devil ! " 

Mr. Commissioner Pordaere, and Mrs. Commissioner, showed 



132 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

among the company on that occasion like the King and Queen of 
a much Greater Britain than Great Britain. Only two other cir- 
cumstances in that jovial night made much separate impression on 
me. One was this. A man in our draft of marines, named Tom 
Packer, a wild, unsteady young fellow, but the son of a respectable 
shipwright in Portsmouth Yard, and a good scholar who had been 
well brought up, comes to me after a spell of dancing, and takes 
me aside by the elbow, and says, swearing angrily : 

" Gill Davis, I hope I may not be the death of Serjeant Drooce 
one day ! " 

Now, I knew Drooce always had borne particularly hard on 
this man, and I knew this man to be of a very hot temper : so, I 
said : 

" Tut, nonsense ! don't talk so to me ! If there's a man in the 
corps who scorns the name of an assassin, that man and Tom 
Packer are one." 

Tom wipes his head, being in a mortal sweat, and says he : 

" I hope so, but I can't answer for myself when he lords it over 
me, as he has just now done, before a woman. I tell you what, 
Gill ! Mark my words ! It will go hard with Serjeant Drooce, 
if ever we are in an engagement together, and he has to look to me 
to save him. Let him say a prayer then, if he knows one, for 
it's all over with him, and he is on his Death-bed. Mark my 
words ! " 

I did mark his words, and very soon afterwards, too, as will 
shortly be taken down. 

The other circumstance that I noticed at that ball was the 
gaiety and attachment of Christian George King. The innocent 
spirits that Sambo Pilot was in, and the impossibility he found 
himself under of showing all the little colony, but especially the 
ladies and children, how fond he was of them, how devoted to them, 
and how faithful to them for life and death, for present, future, 
and everlasting, made a great impression on me. If ever a man. 
Sambo or no Sambo, was trustful and trusted, to what may be 
called quite an infantine and sweetly beautiful extent, surely, I 
thought that morning when I did at last lie down to rest, it was 
that Sambo Pilot, Christian George King. 

This may account for my dreaming of him. He stuck in my 
sleep, cornerwise, and I couldn't get him out. He was always 
flitting about me, dancing round me, and peeping in over my 
hammock, though I woke and dozed off again fifty times. At 
last, when I opened my eyes, there he really was, looking in at 
the open side of the little dark hut ; which was made of leaves, 
and had Charker's hammock rJungr in it as well as mine. 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 133 

" So- Jeer ! " says he, in a sort of a low croak. " Yup ! " 

" Hallo ! " says I, starting up. " What ? You are there, are 
you 1 " 

" Iss," says he. " Christian George King got news." 

" What news has he got ? " 

" Pirates out ! " 

I was on my feet in a second. So was Charker. We were both 
aware that Captain Carton, in command of the boats, constantly 
watched the main land for a secret signal, though, of course, it was 
Qot known to such as us what the signal was. 

Christian George King had vanished before we touched the 
ground. But, the word was already passing from hut to hut to 
turn out quietly, and we knew that the nimble barbarian had got 
hold of the truth, or something near it. 

In a space among the trees behind the encampment of us visitors, 
naval and military, was a snugly-screened spot, where we kept the 
stores that were in use, and did our cookery. The word was passed 
to assemble here. It was very quickly given, and was given (so far 
as we were concerned) by Serjeant Drooce, who was as good in a 
soldier point of view, as he was bad in a tyrannical one. We were 
ordered to drop into this space, quietly, behind the trees, one by 
one. As we assembled here, the seamen assembled too. Within 
ten minutes, as I should estimate, we were all here, except the usual 
guard upon the beach. The beach (we could see it through the 
wood) looked as it always had done in the hottest time of the day. 
The guard were in the shadow of the sloop's hull, and nothing was 
moving but the sea, and that moved very faintly. Work had always 
been knocked off at that hour, until the sun grew less fierce, and 
the sea-breeze rose ; so that its being holiday with us, made no dif- 
ference, just then, in the look of the place. But, I may mention 
that it was a holiday, and the first we had had since our hard work 
began. Last night's ball had been given, on the leak's being re- 
paired, and the careening done. The worst of the work was over, 
and to-morrow we were to begin to get the sloop afloat again. 

We marines were now drawn up here, under arms. The chace-. 
party were drawn up separate. The men of the Columbus were 
drawn up separate. The ofiicers stepped out into the midst of the 
three parties, and spoke so as all might hear. Captain Carton was 
the officer in command, and he had a spy-glass in his hand. His 
coxswain stood by him with another spy-glass, and with a slate on 
which he seemed to have been taking down signals. 

" Now, men ! " says Captain Carton ; " I have to let you know, 
for your satisfaction : Firstly, that there are ten pirate-boats, 
strongly-manned and armed, lying hidden up a creek yonder on the 



134 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

coast, under the overhanging branches of the dense trees. Secondly, 
that they will certainly come out this night when the moon rises, 
on a pillaging and murdering expedition, of which some part of the 
main land is the object. Thirdly — don't cheer, men ! — that we 
will give chace, and, if we can get at them, rid the world of them, 
please God ! " 

Nobody spoke, that I heard, and nobody moved, that I saw. 
Yet there was a kind of ring, as if every man answered and 
approved with the best blood that was inside of him. 

" Sir," says Captain Mary on, " I beg to volunteer on this service, 
with my boats. My people volunteer, to the ship's boys." 

" In His Majesty's name and service," the other answers, touch- 
ing his hat, " I accept your aid with pleasure. Lieutenant Linder- 
wood, how will you divide your men ? " 

I was ashamed — I give it out to be written down as large and 
plain as possible — I was heart and soul ashamed of my thoughts 
of those two sick officers. Captain Maryon and Lieutenant Linder- 
wood, when I saw them, then and there. The spirit in those two 
gentlemen beat down their illness (and very ill I knew them to be) 
like Saint George beating down the Dragon. Pain and weakness, 
want of ease and want of rest, had no more place in their minds 
than fear itself. Meaning now to express for my lady to write 
down, exactly what I felt then and there, I felt this : " You two 
brave fellows that I have been so grudgeful of, I know that if you 
were dying you would put it off to get up and do your best, and 
then you would be so modest that in lying down again to die, you 
would hardly say, ' I did it ! ' " 

It did me good. It really did me good. 

But, to go back to where I broke off. Says Captain Carton to 
Lieutenant Linderwood, "Sir, how will you divide your men? 
There is not room for all ; and a few men should, in any case, be 
left here." 

There was some debate about it. At last, it was resolved to leave 
eight Marines and four seamen on the Island, besides the sloop's 
two boys. And because it was considered that the friendly Sambos 
would only want to be commanded in case of any danger (though 
none at all was apprehended there), the officers were in favour of 
leaving the two non-commissioned officers, Drooce and Charker. 
It was a heavy disappointment to them, just as my being one of 
the left was a heavy disappointment to me — then, but not soon 
afterwards. We men drew lots for it, and I drew " Island." So 
did Tom Packer. So, of course, did four more of our rank and file. 

When this was settled, verbal instructions were given to all 
hands to keep the intended expedition secret, in order that the 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 135 

women and children might not be alarmed, or the expedition put 
in a difficulty by more volunteers. Tlie assembly was to be on 
that same spot, at sunset. Every man was to keep up an appear- 
ance, meanwhile, of occuioying himself in his usual way. That is 
to say, every man excepting four old trusty seamen, who were 
appointed, with an officer, to see to the arms and ammunition, 
and to muffle the ruUocks of the boats, and to make everything 
as trim and swift and silent as it could be made. 

The Sambo Pilot had been present all the while, in case of his 
being wanted, and had said to the officer in command, five hun- 
dred times over if he had said it once, that Christian George King 
would stay with the So- Jeers, and take care of the booffer ladies 
and the booffer childs — booffer being that natif e's expression for 
beautiful. He was now asked a few questions concerning the put- 
ting off of the boats, and in particular whether there was any way 
of embarking at the back of th^ Island : which Captain Carton 
would have half liked to do, and then have dropped round in its 
shadow and slanted across to the main. But, " No," says Chris- 
tian George King. " No, no, no ! Told you so, ten time. No, 
no, no ! All reef, all rock, all swim, all drown ! " Striking out as 
he said it, like a swimmer gone mad, and turning over on his back 
on dry land, and spluttering himself to death, in a manner that 
made him quite an exhibition. 

The sun went down, after appearing to be a long time about it, 
and the assembly was called. Every man answered to his name, 
of course, and was at his post. It was not yet black dark, and the 
roll was only just gone through, when up comes Mr. Commissioner 
Pordage with his Diplomatic coat on. 

"Captain Carton," says he, "sir, what is this?" 

" This, Mr. Commissioner " (he was very short with him), " is an 
expedition against the pirates. It is a secret expedition, so please 
to keep it a secret." 

"Sir," says Commissioner Pordage, "I trust there is going to be 
no unnecessary cruelty committed 1 " 

" Sir," returns the officer, "I trust not." 

" That is not enough, sir," cries Commissioner Pordage, getting 
wroth. " Captain Carton, I give you notice. Government requires 
you to treat the enemy with great delicacy, consideration, clemency, 
and forbearance." 

"Sir," says Captain Carton, "I am an English Officer, com- 
manding English Men, and I hope I am not likely to disappoint 
the Government's just expectations. But, I presume you know 
that these villains under their black flag have despoiled our coun- 
trymen of their property, burnt their homes, barbarously murdered 



136 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

them and their little children, and worse than murdered their 
wives and daughters ? " 

" Perhaps I do, Captain Carton," answers Pordage, waving his 
hand, with dignity ; " perhaps I do not. It is not customary, 
sir, for Government to commit itself." 

" It matters very little, Mr. Pordage, whether or no. Believing 
that I hold my commission by the allowance of God, and not that 
I have received it direct from the Devil, I shall certainly use it, 
with all avoidance of unnecessary suffering and with all merciful 
swiftness of execution, to exterminate these people from the face of 
the earth. Let me recommend you to go home, sir, and to keep 
out of the night-air." 

Never another syllable did that officer say to the Commissioner, 
but turned away to his men. The Commissioner buttoned his 
Diplomatic coat to the chin, said, " Mr. Kitten, attend me ! " 
gasped, half choked himself, and fook himseJf off. 

It now fell very dark, indeed. I have seldom, if ever, seen it 
darker, nor yet so dark. The moon was not due until one in the 
morning, and it was but a little after nine when our men lay down 
where they were mustered. It was pretended that they were to 
take a nap, but everybody knew that no nap was to be got under 
the circumstances. Though all were very quiet, there was a rest- 
lessness among the people ; much what I have seen among the peo- 
ple on a race-course, when the bell has rung for the saddling for 
a great race with large stakes on it. 

At ten, they put off; only one boat putting off at a time; another 
following in five minutes ; both then lying on their oars until an- 
other followed. Ahead of all, paddling his own outlandish little 
canoe without a sound, went the Sambo Pilot, to take them safely 
outside the reef. No light was shown but once, and that was in 
the commanding officer's own hand. I lighted the dark lantern for 
him, and he took it from me when he embarked. They had blue 
lights and such like with them, but kept themselves as dark as 
Murder. 

The expedition got away with wonderful quietness, and Christian 
George King soon came back, dancing with joy. 

" Yup, So-Jeer," says he to myself in a very objectionable kind of 
convulsions, " Christian George King sar berry glad. Pirates all be 
blown a-pieces. Yup ! Yup ! " 

My reply to that cannibal was, "However glad you may be, hold 
your noise, and don't dance jigs and slap your knees about it, for I 
can't a-bear to see you do it." 

I was on duty then; we twelve who were left, being divided 
into four watches of three each, three hours' spell. I was relieved 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 137 

at twelve. A little before that time, I had challenged, and Miss 
iMaryon and Mrs. Belltott had come in. 

" Good Davis," says Miss Mary on, " what is the matter 1 Where 
s my brother 1 " 

I told her what was the matter, and where her brother was. 

" Heaven help him ! " says she, clasping her hands and looking 
ip — -she was close in front of me, and she looked most lovely to 
36 sure ; "he is not sufficiently recovered, not strong enough, for 
mch. strife ! " 

"If you had seen him, miss," I told her, "as I saw him when 
le volunteered, you would have known that his spirit is strong 
^nough for any strife. It will bear his body, miss, to wherever 
luty calls him. It will always bear him to an honourable life, or 
I brave death." 

" Heaven bless you ! " says shej touching my arm. " I know it. 
Heaven bless you ! " 

Mrs. Belltott surprised me by trembling and saying nothing. 
They were still standing looking towards the sea and listening, after 
the relief had come round. It continuing very dark, I asked to be 
allowed to take them back. Miss Maryon thanked me, and she 
put her arm in mine, and I did take them back. I have now got 
to make a confession that will appear singular. After I had left 
them, I laid myself down on my face on the beach, and cried, for 
the first time since I had frightened birds as a boy at Snorridge 
Bottom, to think what a poor, ignorant, low-placed, private soldier 
I was. 

It was only for half a minute or so. A man can't at all times 
be quite master of himself, and it was only for half a minute or so. 
Then I up and went to my hut, and turned into my hammock, and 
fell asleep with wet eyelashes, and a sore, sore heart. Just as I 
had often done when I was a child, and had been worse used than 
usual. 

I slept (as a child under those circumstances might) very sound, 
and yet very sore at heart all through my sleep. I was awoke by 
the words, " He is a determined man." I had sprung out of my 
hammock, and had seized my firelock, and was standing on the 
ground, saying the words myself. "He is a determined man." 
i But, the curiosity of my state was, that I seemed to be repeating 
I them after somebody, and to have been wonderfully startled by 
hearing them. 

As soon as I came to myself, I went out of the hut, and away to 
where the guard was. Charker challenged : " Who goes there ? " 
" A friend." " Not Gill ? " says he, as he shouldered his piece. 
" Gill," says I. " Why, what the deuce do you do, out of your 



138 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. | 

hammock ? " says he. " Too hot for sleep," says I ; " is all right ? " 
" Right ! " says Charker, "yes, yes ; all's right enough here ; what 
should be wrong here 1 It's the boats that we want to know of. 
Except for fire-flies twinkling about, and the lonesome splashes of 
great creatures as they drop into the water, there's nothing going 
on here to ease a man's mind from the boats." 

The moon was above the sea, and had risen, I should say, some 
half-an-hour. As Charker spoke, with his fi\ce towards the sea, I, 
looking landward, suddenly laid my right hand on his breast, and 
said, "Don't move. Don't turn. Don't raise your voice! You 
never saw a Maltese face here ? " 

" No. What do you mean 1 " he asks, staring at me. 

" Nor yet an English face, with one eye and a patch across the 
nose ? " 

" No. What ails you ? What do you mean ? " 

I had seen both, looking at us round the stem of a cocoa-nut 
tree, where the moon struck them, I had seen that Sambo Pilot, 
with one hand laid on the stem of the tree, drawing them back 
into the heavy shadow. I had seen their naked cutlasses twinkle 
and shine, like bits of the moonshine in the water that had got 
blown ashore among the trees by the light wind. I had seen it 
all, in a moment. And I saw in a moment (as any man would), 
that the signalled move of the pirates on the mainland was a plol 
and a feint; that the leak had been made to disable the sloop; 
that the boats had been tempted away, to leave the Island unpro- 
tected ; that the pirates had landed by some secreted way at the 
back ; and that Christian George King was a double-dyed traitor, 
and a most infernal villain. 

I considered, still all in one and the same moment, that Charker 
was a brave man, but not quick with his head ; and that Serjeant 
Drooce, with a much better head, was close by. All I said to 
Charker was, " I am afraid we are betrayed. Turn your back full 
to the moonlight on the sea, and cover the stem of the cocoa-nut 
tree which will then be right before you, at the height of a man's 
heart. Are you right ? " 

" I am right," says Charker, turning instantly, and falling into 
the position with a nerve of iron ; " and right an't left. Is it, 
GiUr' 

A few seconds brought me to Serjeant Drooce's hut. He was 
fast asleep, and being a heavy sleeper, I had to lay my hand upon 
him to rouse him. The instant I touched him he came rolling 
out of his hammock, and upon me like a tiger. And a tiger he- 
was, except that he knew what he was up to, in his utmost heat, 
as well as any man. 



THE PEKILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 139 

I had to struggle with him pretty hard to bring him to his senses, 
panting all the while (for he gave me a breather), " Serjeant, I 
am Gill Davis ! Treachery ! Pirates on the Island ! " 

The last words brought him round, and he took his hands oflf. 
"I have seen two of them within this minute," said I. And so I 
told him what I had told Harry Charker. 

His soldierly, though tyrannical, head was clear in an instant. 
He didn't waste one word, even of surprise. "Order the guard," 
says he, "to draw off quietly into the Fort.", (They called the 
enclosure I have before mentioned, the Fort, though it was not 
much of that.) " Then get you to the Fort as quick as you can, 
rouse up every soul there, and fasten the gate. I will bring in all 
those who are up at the Signal Hill. If we are surrounded before 
we can join you, you must make a sally and cut us out if you can. 
The word among our men is, ' Women and children ! ' " 

He burst away, like fire going before the wind over dry reeds. 
He roused up the seven men who were off duty, and had them 
bursting away with him, before they knew they were not asleep. 
I reported orders to Charker, and ran to the Fort, as I have never 
run at any other time in all my life : no, not even in a dream. 

The gate was not fast, and had no good fastening : only a double 
wooden bar, a poor chain, and a bad lock. Those, I secured as 
well as they could be secured in a few seconds by one pair of hands, 
and so ran to that part of the building where Miss Maryon lived. 
I called to her loudly by her name until she answered. I then 
called loudly all the names I knew — Mrs. Macey (Miss Maryon's 
married sister), Mr. Macey, Mrs. Venning, Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, 
even Mr. and Mrs. Pordage. Then I called out, "All you gentle- 
men here, get up and defend the place ! We are caught in a trap. 
Pirates have landed. We are attacked ! " 

At the terrible word " Pirates ! " — for, those villains had done 
such deeds in those seas as never can be told in writing, and can 
scarcely be so much as thought of — cries and screams rose up 
from every part of the place. Quickly lights moved about from 
window to window, and the cries moved about with them, and 
men, women and children came flying down into the square. I 
remarked to myself, even then, what a number of things I seemed 
to see at once. I noticed Mrs. Macey coming towards me, carry- 
ing all her three children together. I noticed Mr. Pordage, in the 
greatest terror, in vain trying to get on his Diplomatic coat ; and 
Mr. Kitten respectfully tying his pocket-handkerchief over Mrs. 
Pordage's nightcap. 1 noticed Mrs. Belltott run out screaming, 
and shrink upon the ground near me, and cover her face in her 
hands, and lie, all of a bundle, shivering. But, what I noticed 



140 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

with the greatest pleasure was, the determined eyes with which 
those men of the mine that I had thought fine gentlemen, came 
round me with what arms they had : to the full as cool and reso- 
lute as I could be, for my life — ay, and for my soul, too, into the 
bargain ! 

The chief person being Mr. Macey, I told him how the three 
men of the guard would be at the gate directly, if they were not 
already there, and how Serjeant Drooce and the other seven were 
gone to bring in the outlying part of the people of Silver-Store. I 
next urged him, for the love of all who were dear to him, to trust 
no Sambo, and, above all, if he could get any good chance at Chris- 
tian George King, not to lose it, but to put him out of the world. 
"I will follow your advice to the letter, Davis," says he; "what 
next?" My answer was, " I think, sir, I would recommend you 
next to order down such henyj furniture and lumber as can be 
moved, and make a barricade within the gate." "That's good 
again," says he ; " will you see it done ? " " I'll williugly help to do 
it," says I, " unless or until my superior, Serjeant Drooce, gives me 
other orders." He shook me by the hand, and having told off some 
of his companions to help me, bestirred himself to look to the arms 
and ammunition. A proper quick, brave, steady, ready gentleman ! 

One of their three little children was deaf and dumb. Miss 
Maryon had been from the first with all the children, soothing 
them, and dressing them (poor little things, they had been brought 
out of their beds), and making them believe that it was a game of 
play, so that some of them were now even laughing. I had been 
working hard with the others at the barricade, and had got up a 
pretty good breastwork within the gate. Drooce and the seven 
had come back, bringing in the people from the Signal Hill, and 
had worked along with us : but, I had not so much as spoken a 
word to Drooce, nor had Drooce so much as spoken a word to me, 
for we were both too busy. The breastwork was now finished, and 
I found Miss Maryon at my side, with a child in her arms. Her 
dark hair was fastened round her head with a band. She had a 
quantity of it, and it looked even richer and more precious, put up 
hastily out of her way, than I had seen it look when it was care- 
fully arranged. She was very pale, but extraordinarily quiet and 
still. 

"Dear good Davis," said she, "I have been waiting to speak 
one word to you." 

I turned to her directly. If I had received a musket-ball in the 
heart, and she had stood there, I almost believe I should have 
turned to her before I dropped. 

" This pretty little creature," said she, kissing the child in her 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 141 

arms, who was playing with her hair and trying to pull it down, 
" cannot hear what we say — can hear nothing. I trust you so 
much, and have such great confidence in you, that I want you to 
make me a promise." 

" What is it, miss ? " 

" That if we are defeated, and you are absolutely sure of my being 
taken, you will kill me." 

" I shall not be alive to do it, miss. I shall have died in your 
defence before it comes to that. They must step across my body, 
to lay a hand on you." 

" But if you are alive, you brave soldier." How she looked at 
me ! " And if you cannot save me from ther pirates, living, you 
will save me, dead. Tell me so." 

Well ! I told her I would do that, at the last, if all else failed. 
She took my hand — my rough, coarse hand— and put it to her 
lips. She put it to the child's lips, and the child kissed it. I be- 
lieve I had the strength of half a dozen men in me, from that 
moment, until the fight was over. 

All this time, Mr. Commissioner Pordage had been wanting to 
make a Proclamation to the pirates, to lay down their arms and go 
away; and everybody had been hustling him about and tumbling 
over him, while he was calling for pen and ink to write it with. 
Mrs. Pordage, too, had some curious ideas about the British respect- 
ability of her nightcap (which had as many frills to it, growing in 
layers one inside another, as if it was a white vegetable of the arti- 
choke sort), and she wouldn't take the nightcap off", and would be 
angry when it got crushed by the other ladies who were handing 
things about, and, in short, she gave as much trouble as her hus- 
band did. But, as we were now forming for the defence of the 
place, they were both poked out of the way with no ceremony. The 
children and ladies were got into the little trench which surrounded 
the silver-house (we were afraid of leaving them in any of the light 
buildings, lest they should be set on fire), and we made the best 
disposition we could. There was a pretty good store, in point of 
amount, of tolerable swords and cutlasses. Those were issued. 
There were, also, perhaps a score or so of spare muskets. Those 
were brought out. To my astonishment, little Mrs. Fisher that I 
had taken for a doll and a baby, was not only very active in that 
service, but volunteered to load the spare arms. 

"For, I understand it well," says she, cheerfully, without a shake 
in her voice. 

"I am a soldier's daughter and a sailor's sister, and I under- 
stand it too," says Miss Maryon, just in the same way. 

Steady and busy behind where I stood, those two beautiful and 



142 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

delicate yoniig women fell to handling the guns, hammering the 
flints, looking to the locks, and quietly directing others to pass up 
powder and bullets from hand to hand, as unflinching as the best 
of tried soldiers. 

Serjeant Drooce had brought in word that the pirates were very 
strong in numbers — over a hundred, was his estimate — and that 
they were not, even then, all landed ; for, he had seen them in a 
very good position on the further side of the Signal Hill, evidently 
waiting for the rest of their men to come up. In the present pause, 
the first we had had since the alarm, he was telling this over again 
to Mr. Macey, when Mr. Macey suddenly cried out : 

" The signal ! Nobody has thought of the signal ! " 

We knew of no signal, so we could not have thought of it. 
" What signal may you mean, sir ? " says Serjeant Drooce, looking 
sharp at him. 

" There is a pile of wood upon the Signal Hill. If it could be 
lighted — which never has been done yet — it would be a signal of 
distress to the mainland." 

Charker cries, directly : " Serjeant Drooce, despatch me on that 
duty. Give me the two men who were on guard with me to-niglit, 
and I'll light the fire, if it can be done." 

"And if it can't. Corporal " Mr. Macey strikes in. 

" Look at these ladies and children, sir ! " says Charker. " I'd 
sooner light myself, than not try any chance to save them." 

We gave him a Hurrah ! — it burst from us, come of it what 
might — and he got his two men, and was let out at the gate, and 
crept away. I had no sooner come back to my place from being 
one of the party to handle the gate, than Miss Maryon said in 
a low voice behind me : 

"Davis, will you look at this powder ? This is not right ? " 

I turned my head. Christian George King again, and treachery 
again ! Sea-water had been conveyed into the magazine, and every 
grain of powder was spoiled ! 

" Stay a moment," said Serjeant Drooce, when I had told him, 
without causing a movement in a muscle of his face : " look to 
your pouch, my lad. You Tom Packer, look to your pouch, confound 
you ! Look to your pouches, all you Marines." 

The same artful savage had got at them, somehow or another, 
and the cartridges were all unserviceable. " Hum ! " says the 
Serjeant, "Look to your loading, men. You are right so far?" 

Yes ; we were right so far. 

"Well, my lads, and gentlemen all," says the Serjeant, "this 
will be a hand-to-hand affair, and so much the better." 

He treated himself tu a pinch of snuff, and stood up, square- 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 143 

shouldered and broad-chested, in the light of the moon — which 
was now very bright — as cool as if he was waiting for a play to 
begin. He stood quiet, and we all stood quiet, for a matter of 
something like half-an-hour. I took notice from such whispered 
talk as there was, how little we that the silver did not belong to, 
thought about it, and how much the people that it did belong to, 
thought about it. At the end of the half-hour, it was reported 
from the gate that Charker and the two were falling back on us, 
pursued by about a dozen. 

" Sally ! Gate-party, under Gill Davis," says the Serjeant, "and 
bring 'em in ! Like men, now ! " 

We were not long about it, and we brought them in. " Don't 
take me," says Charker, holding me round the neck, and stumbling 
down at my feet when the gate was fast, "don't take me near the 
ladies or the children. Gill. They had better not see Death, till it 
can't be helped. They'll see it soon enough." 

" Harry ! " I answered, holding up his head. " Comrade ! " 

He was cut to pieces. The signal had been secured by the first 
pirate party that landed ; his hair was all singed off, and his face 
was blackened with the running pitch from a torch. 

He made no complaint of pain, or of anything. "Good-bye, 
old chap," was all he said, with a smile. " I've got my Death. 
And Death an't life. Is it. Gill ? " 

Having helped to lay his poor body on one side, I went back 
to my post. Serjeant Drooce looked at me, with his eyebrows a 
little lifted. I nodded. " Close up here, men, and gentlemen 
all !" said the Serjeant. "A place too many, in the line." 

The pirates were so close upon us at this time, that the fore- 
most of them were already before the gate. More and more came 
up with a great noise, and shouting loudly. When we believed 
from the sound that they were all there, we gave three English 
cheers. The poor little children joined, and were so fully con- 
vinced of our being at play, that they enjoyed the noise, and were 
heard clapping their hands in the silence that followed. 

Our disposition was this, beginning with the rear. Mrs. Ven- 
ning, holding her daughter's child in her arms, sat on the steps of 
the little square trench surrounding the silver-house, encouraging 
and directing those women and children as she might have clone 
in the happiest and easiest time of her life. Then, there was an 
armed line, under Mr. Macey, across the width of the enclosure, 
facing that way and having their backs towards the gate, in order 
that they might watch the walls and prevent our being taken by 
surprise. Then, there was a space of eight or ten feet deep, in 
which the spare arms were, and in which Miss Maryon and Mrs. 



144 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

Fisher, their hands and dresses blackened with the spoilt gun- 
powder, worked on their knees, tying such things as knives, old 
bayonets, and spear-heads, to the muzzles of the useless muskets. 
Then, there was a second armed line, under Serjeant Drooce, also 
across the width of the enclosure, but lacing to the gate. Then, 
came the breastwork w^e had made, with a zig-zag way through it 
for me and my little party to hold good in retreating, as long as we 
could, when we were driven from the gate. We all knew that it 
was impossible to hold the place long, and that our only hope 
was in the timely discovery of the plot by the boats, and in their 
coming back. 

I and my men were now thrown forward to the gate. From 
a spy-hole, I could see the wdiole crowd of pirates. There were 
Malays among them, Dutch, Maltese, Greeks, Sambos, Negroes, 
and Convict Englishmen from the West India Islands ; among the 
last, him with the one eye and the patch across the nose. There 
were some Portuguese, too, and a few Spaniards. The captain was 
a Portuguese ; a little man with very large ear-rings under a very 
broad hat, and a great bright shawl twisted about his shoulders. 
They were all strongly armed, but like a boarding party, with 
pikes, swords, cutlasses, and axes. I noticed a good many pistols, 
but not a gun of any kind among them. This gave me to under- 
stand that they had considered that a continued roll of musketry 
might perhaps have been heard on the mainland ; also, that for the 
reason that fire would be seen from the mainland they would not 
set the Fort in flames and roast us alive ; which was one of their 
favourite ways of carrying on. I looked about for Christian George 
King, and if I had seen him I am much mistaken if he would not 
have received my one round of ball-cartridge in his head. But, no 
Christian George King was visible. 

A sort of a wild Portuguese demon, who seemed either fierce- 
mad or fierce-drunk — -but, they all seemed one or the other — 
came forward with the black flag, and gave it a wave or two. 
After that, the Portuguese Captain called out in shrill English, 
" I say you ! English fools ! Open the gate ! Surrender ! " 

As we kept close and quiet, he said something to his men which 
I didn't understand, and when he had said it, the one-eyed English 
rascal with the patch (who had stepped out when he began), said 
it again in English. It was only this. " Boys of the black flag, 
this is to be quickly done. Take all the jmsoners you can. If 
they don't yield, kill the children to make them. Forward ! " 
Then, they all came on at the gate, and, in another half minute 
were smashing and splitting it in. 

We struck at them through the gaps and shivers, and we dropped 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 145 

many of them, too ; but, their very weight would have carried such 
a gate, if they had been unarmed. I soon found Serjeant Drooce 
at my side, forming us six remaining Marines in line — Tom Packer 
next to me — and ordering us to fall back three paces, and, as they 
broke in, to give them our one little volley at short distance. 
"Then," says he, "receive them behind your breastwork on the 
bayonet, and at least let every man of you pin one of the cursed 
cockchafers through the body." 

We checked them by our fire, slight as it was, and we checked 
them at the breastwork. However, they broke over it like 
swarms of devils — they were, really and truly, more devils than 
men — and then it was hand to hand, indeed. 

We clubbed our muskets and laid about us; even then, those 
two ladies — always behind me — were steady and ready with the 
arms. I had a lot of Maltese and Malays upon me, and, but for 
a broadsword that Miss Maryon's own hand put in mine, should 
have got my end from them. But, was that all ? No. I saw a 
heap of banded dark hair and a white dress come thrice between 
me and them, under my own raised right arm, which each time 
might have destroyed the wearer of the white dress ; and each 
time one of the lot went down, struck dead. 

Drooce was armed with a broadsword, too, and did such things 
with it, that there was a cry, in half a dozen languages, of "Kill 
that Serjeant ! " as I knew, by the cry being raised in English, 
and taken up in other tongues. I had received a severe cut 
across the left arm a few moments before, and should have known 
nothing of it, except supposing that somebody had struck me a 
smart blow, if I had not felt weak, and seen myself covered with 
spouting blood, and, at the same instant of time, seen Miss Maryon 
tearing her dress, and binding it with Mrs. Fisher's help round the 
wound. They called to Tom Packer, who was scouring by, to 
stop and guard me for one minute, while I was bound, or I should 
bleed to death in trying to defend myself. Tom stopped directly, 
with a good sabre in his hand. 

In that same moment — all things seem to happen in that same 
moment, at such a time — half a dozen had rushed howling at 
Serjeant Drooce. The Serjeant, stepping back against the wall, 
stopped one howl for ever with such a terrible blow, and waited 
for the rest to come on, with such a wonderfully unmoved face, 
that they stopped and looked at him. 

" See him now ! " cried Tom Packer. " Now, when I could 
cut him out ! Gill ! Did I tell you to mark my words ? " 

I implored Tom Packer in the Lord's name, as well as I could 
in my faintness, to go to the Serjeant's aid. 

L 



146 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

" I hate and detest him," said Tom, moodily wavering. " Still, 
he is a brave man." Then he calls out, " Serjeant Drooce, Ser- 
jeant Drooce ! Tell me you have driven me too hard, and are sorry 

for it." ^ ^. .. ^ 

The Serjeant, without turning his eyes from his assailants, 
which would have been instant death to him, answers : 

"No. I won't." 

" Serjeant Drooce ! " cries Tom, in a kind of an agony. " I have 
passed my word that I would never save you from Death, if I 
could, but would leave you to die. Tell me you have driven me 
too hard and are sorry for it, and that shall go for nothing." 

One of the group laid the Serjeant's bald bare head open. 
The Serjeant laid him dead. 

"I tell you," says the Serjeant, breathing a little short, and 
waiting for the next attack. " No. I won't. If you are not 
man enough to strike for a fellow-soldier because he wants help, 
and because of nothing else, I'll go into the other world and look 
for a better man." r - 1 4. 

Tom swept upon them, and cut him out. Tom and he tought 
their way through another knot of them, and sent them flying, 
and came over to where I was beginning again to feel, with inex- 
pressible joy, that I had got a sword in my hand. 

They had hardly come to us, when I heard, above all the other 
noises, a tremendous cry of women's voices. I also saw Miss 
Maryon, with quite a new face, suddenly clap her two hands over 
Mrs. Fisher's eyes. I looked towards the silver-house, and saw 
Mrs. Venning — standing upright on the top of the steps of the 
trench, with her grey hair and her dark eyes — hide her daughter's 
child behind her, among the folds of her dress, strike a pirate with 
her other hand, and fall, shot by his pistol. 

The cry rose again, and there was a terrible and confusing rush 
of the women into the midst of the struggle. In another moment 
something came tumbling down upon me that I thought was the 
wall. It was a heap of Sambos who had come over the wall ; and 
of four men who clung to my legs like serpents, one who clung to 
my right leg was Christian George King. 

"Yup, So-Jeer!" says he, "Christian George King sar berry 
glad So-Jeer a prisoner. Christian George King been waiting for 
So-Jeer sech long time. Yup, yup ! " 

What could I do, with five-and-twenty of them on me, but be 
tied hand and foot 1 So, I was tied hand and foot. It was all 
over now — boats not come back — all lost ! When I was fast 
bound and was put up against the wall, the one-eyed English convict 
came up with the Portuguese Captain, to have a look at me. 



THE PERILS or CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 147 

" See ! " says he, " Here's the determined man ! If you had 
slept sounder, last night, you'd have slept your soundest last 
night, my determined man." 

The Portuguese Captain laughed in a cool way, and, with the 
flat of his cutlass, hit me crosswise, as if I was the bough of a tree 
that he played with : first on the face, and then across the chest 
and the wounded arm. I looked him steady in the face without 
tumbling while he looked at me, I am happy to say ; but, when 
they went away, I fell, and lay there. 

The sun was up, when I was roused and told to come down to 
the beach and be embarked. I was full of aches and pains, and 
could not at first remember ; but, I remembered quite soon enough. 
The killed were lying about all over the place, and the pirates 
were burying their dead, and taking away their wounded on 
hastily-made litters, to the back of the Island. As for us pris- 
oners, some of their boats had come round to the usual harbour, 
to carry us off". We looked a wretched few, I thought, when I 
got down there ; still, it was another sign that we had fought well, 
and made the enemy suffer. 

The Portuguese Captain had all the women already embarked in 
the boat he himself commanded, which was just putting off" when 
I got down. Miss Maryon sat on one side of him, and gave me 
a moment's look, as full of quiet courage, and pity, and confidence, 
as if it had been an hour long. On the other side of him was 
poor little Mrs. Fisher, weeping for her child and her mother. I 
was shoved into the same boat with Drooce and Packer, and the 
remainder of our party of Marines : of whom we had lost two 
privates, besides Charker, my poor, brave comrade. We all made 
a melancholy passage, under the hot sun, over to the mainland. 
There, we landed in a solitary place, and were mustered on the 
sea sand. Mr. and Mrs. Macey and their children were amongst 
us, Mr. and Mrs. Pordage, Mr. Kitten, Mr. Fisher, and Mrs. 
Belltott. We mustered only fourteen men, fifteen women, and 
seven children. Those were all that remained of the English who 
had lain down to sleep last night, unsuspecting and happy, on the 
Island of Silver-Store. 



148 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 
Chapter II. 

THE PRISON IN THE WOODS. 

There we all stood, huddled up on the beach under the burning 
sun, with the pirates closing us in on every side — as forlorn a 
company of helpless men, women, and children as ever was gathered 
together out of any nation in the world. I kept my thoughts to 
myself; but I did not in my heart believe that anyone of our lives 
was worth five minutes' purchase. 

The man on whose will our safety or our destruction depended 
was the Pirate Captain. All our eyes, by a kind of instinct, fixed 
themselves on him — excepting in the case of the poor children, 
who, too frightened to cry, stood hiding tlieir faces against their 
mothers' gowns. The ruler who lield all the ruffians about us in 
subjection, was, judging by appearances, the very last man I should 
have picked out as likely to fill a place of power among any body 
of men, good or bad, under heaven. By nation, he was a Portu- 
guese ; and, by name, he was generally spoken of among his men 
as The Don. He was a little, active, weazen, monkey-faced man, 
dressed in the brightest colours and the finest-made clothes I ever 
saw. His three-cornered hat was smartly cocked on one side. His 
coat-skirts were stiftened and stuck out, like the skirts of the dan- 
dies in the Mall in London. When the dance was given at the 
Island, I saw no such lace on any lady's dress there as I saw on 
his cravat and ruffles. Round his neck he wore a thick gold chain, 
with a diamond cross hanging from it. His lean, wiry, brown fingers 
were covered with rings. Over his shoulders, and falling do^\ u in 
front to below his waist, he wore a sort of sling of broad scarlet 
cloth, embroidered with beads and little feathers, and holding, at the 
lower part, four loaded pistols, two on a side, lying ready to either 
hand. His face was mere skin and bone, and one of his wrinkled 
cheeks had a blue scar running all across it, which drew up that part 
of his face, and showed his white shining teeth on that side of his 
mouth. An uglier, meaner, weaker, man-monkey to look at, I never 
saw ; and yet there was not one of his crew, from his mate to his 
cabin-boy, who did not obey him as if he had been the greatest 
monarch in the world. As for the Sambos, including especially that 
evil-minded scoundrel, Christian George King, they never went near 
him without seeming to want to roll before him on the ground^ for 
the sake of winning the honour of having one of his little dancing- 
master's feet set on their black bullock bodies. 

There this fellow stood, while we were looking at him, with his 
hands in his pockets, smoking a cigar. His mate (the one-eyed 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 149 

Englishman), stood by him; a big, hulking fellow he was, who 
might have eaten the Captain up, pistols and all, and looked about 
for more afterwards. The Don himself seemed, to an ignorant man 
like me, to have a gift of speaking in any tongue he liked. I can 
testify that his English rattled out of his crooked lips as fast as if 
it was natural to them ; making allowance, of course, for his foreign 
way of clipping his words. 

"Now, Captain," says the big mate, running his eye over us as 
if we were a herd of cattle, " here they are. What's to be done 
with them 1 " 

" Are they all off the Island 1 " says the Pirate Captain. 

"All of them that are alive," says the mate.. 

" Good, and very good," says the Captain. " Now, Giant-Georgy, 
some paper, a pen, and a horn of ink." 

Those things were brought immediately. 

"Something to write on," says the Pirate Captain. "What? 
Ha ! why not a broad nigger back 1 " 

He pointed with the end of his cigar to one of the Sambos. The 
man was pulled forward, and set down on his knees with his shoul- 
ders rounded. The Pirate Captain laid the paper on them, and 
took a dip of ink — then suddenly turned up his snub-nose with 
a look of disgust, and, removing the paper again, took from his 
pocket a fine cambric handkerchief edged with lace, smelt at the 
scent on it, and afterwards laid it delicately over the Sambo's 
shoulders. 

" A table of black man's back, with the sun on it, close under 
my nose — ah, Giant-Georgy, pah ! pah ! " says the Pirate Captain, 
putting the paper on the handkerchief, with another grimace ex- 
pressive of great disgust. 

He began to write immediately, waiting from time to time to 
consider a little with himself; and once stopping, apparently, to 
count our numbers as we stood before him. To think of that vil- 
lain knowing how to write, and of my not being able to make so 
much as a decent pothook, if it had been to save my life ! 

When he had done, he signed to one of his men to take the 
scented handkerchief off the Sambo's back, and told the sailor he 
might keep it for his trouble. Then, holding the written paper 
open in his hand, he came forward a step or two closer to us, and 
said, with a grin, and a mock bow, which made my fingers itch 
with wanting to be at him : 

" I have the honour of addressing myself to the ladies. Accord- 
ing to my reckoning they are fifteen ladies in all. Does any one 
of them belong to the chief officer of the sloop ? " 

There was a momentary silence. 



150 THE PEKILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

"You don't answer me," says the Pirate Captain. "Now, I 
mean to be answered. Look here, women." He drew one of his 
four pistols out of his gay scarlet sling, and walked up to Tom 
Packer, who happened to be standing nearest to him of the men 
prisoners. " This is a pistol, and it is loaded. I put the barrel 
to the head of this man with my right hand, and I take out my 
watch with my left. I wait five minutes for an answer. If I 
don't get it in five minutes, I blow this man's brains out. I wait 
five minutes again, and if I don't get an answer, I blow the next 
man's brains out. And so I go on, if you are obstinate, and your 
nerves are strong, till not one of your soldiers or your sailors is left. 
On my word of honour, as a gentleman-buccanier, I promise you 
that. Ask my men if I ever broke my word." 

He rested the barrel of the pistol against Tom Packer s head, 
and looked at his watch, as perfectly composed, in his cat-like cru- 
elty, as if he was waiting for the boiling of an egg. 

" If you think it best not to answer him, ladies," says Tom, 
" never mind me. It's my trade to risk my life ; and I shall lose 
it in a good cause." 

"A brave man," said the Pirate Captain, lightly. "Well, 
ladies, are you going to sacrifice the brave man 1 " 

"We are going to save him," said Miss Maryon, "as he has 
striven to save us. / belong to the Captain of the sloop. I am his 
sister." She stopped, and whispered anxiously to Mrs. Macey, 
who was standing with her. " Don't acknowledge yourself, as I 
have done — you have children." 

" Good ! " said the Pirate Captain. " The answer is given, and 
the brains may stop in the brave man's head." He put his watch 
and pistol back, and took two or three quick puff's at his cigar to 
keep it alight — then handed the paper he had written on, and his 
penfull of ink, to Miss Maryon. 

"Read that over," he said, "and sign it for yourself, and the 
women and children with you." 

Saying those words, he turned round briskly on his heel, and 
began talking, in a whisper to Giant-Georgy, the big English mate. 
What he was talking about, of course, I could not hear; but I 
noticed that he motioned several times straight into the interior of 
the country. 

"Davis," said Miss Maryon, "look at this." 

She crossed before her sister, as she spoke, and held the paper 
which the Pirate Captain had given to her, under my eyes — my 
bound arms not allowing me to take it myself. Never to my dying 
day shall I forget the shame I felt, when I was obliged to acknowl- 
edge to Miss Maryon that I could not read a word of it ! 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 151 

"There are better men than me, ma'am," I said, with a sinking 
heart, " who can read it, and advise you for the best." 

"None better," she answered, quietly. " None, whose advice I 
would so willingly take. I have seen enough, to feel sure of that. 
Listen, Davis, while I read." 

Her pale face turned paler still, as she fixed her eyes on the 
paper. Lowering her voice to a whisper, so that the women and 
children near might not hear, she read me these lines : 

" To the Captains of English men-of-war, and to the commanders 
of vessels of other nations, cruising in the Caribbean Seas. 

" The precious metal and the jewels laid up iji the English Island 
of Silver-Store, are in the possession of the Buccaniers, at sea. 

" The women and children of the Island of Silver-Store, to the 
number of Twenty-Two, are in the possession of the Buccaniers, 
on land. 

"They will be taken up the country, with fourteen men prisoners 
(whose lives the Buccaniers have private reasons of their own for 
preserving), to a place of confinement, which is unapproachable by 
strangers. They will be kept there until a certain day, previously 
agreed on between the Buccaniers at sea, and the Buccaniers on 
land. 

"If, by that time, no news from the party at sea, reaches the 
party on land, it will be taken for granted that the expedition 
which conveys away the silver and jewels has been met, engaged, 
and conquered by superior force ; that the Treasure has been taken 
from its present owners ; and that the Buccaniers guarding it, have 
been made prisoners, to be dealt with according to the law. 

" The absence of the expected news at the appointed time, being 
interpreted in this way, it will be the next object of the Buccaniers 
on land to take reprisals for the loss and the injury inflicted on 
their companions at sea. The lives of the women and children of 
the Island of Silver-Store are absolutely at their mercy ; and those 
lives will pay the forfeit, if the Treasure is taken away, and if the 
men in possession of it come to harm. 

" This paper will be nailed to the lid of the largest chest taken 
from the Island. Any officer whom the chances of war may bring 
within reading distance of it, is warned to pause and consider, be- 
fore his conduct signs the death-warrant of the women and children 
of an English colony. 

" Signed, under the Black Flag, 

"Pedro Mendez, 

" Commander of the Buccaniers, and Chief of the Guard over 
the Enghsh Prisoners." 



152 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

" The statement above written, in so far as it regards the situa- 
tion we are now placed in, may be depended on as the truth. 

" Signed on behalf of the imprisoned women and children of the 
Island of Silver-Store." 

"Beneath this last line," said Miss Maryon, pointing to it, "is 
a blank space, in which I am expected to sign my name." 

"And in five minutes' time," added the Pirate Captain, who 
had stolen close up to us, " or the same consequences will follow 
which I had the pleasure of explaining to you a few minutes ago." 

He again drew out his watch and pistol ; but, this time, it was 
my head that he touched with the barrel. 

" When Tom Packer spoke for himself, miss, a little while ago," 
I said, "please to consider that he spoke for me." 

" Another brave man ! " said the Pirate Captain, with his ape's 
grin. " Am I to fire my pistol this time, or am I to put it back 
again as I did before ? " 

Miss Maryon did not seem to hear him. Her kind eyes rested 
for a moment on my face, and then looked up to the bright heaven 
above us. 

"Whether I sign, or whether I do not sign," she said, "we are 
still in the hands of God, and the future which His wisdom has 
appointed will not the less surely come," 

With those words slie placed the paper on my breast, signed it, 
and handed it back to tlie Pirate Captain. 

" This is our secret, Davis," she whispered. " Let us keep the 
dreadful knowledge of it to ourselves as long as we can." 

I have another singular confession to make — I hardly expect 
anybody to believe me when I mention the circumstance — but it 
is not the less the plain tnith that, even in the midst of that 
frightful situation, I felt, for a few moments, a sensation of hap- 
piness while Miss Maryon's hand was holding the paper on my 
breast, and while her lips were telling me that there was a secret 
between us which we were to keep together.. 

The Pirate Captain carried the signed paper at once to his 
mate. 

"Go back to the Island," he says, "and nail that with your 
own hands on the lid of the largest chest. There is no occasion 
to hurry the business of shipping the Treasure, because there is 
nobody on the Island to make signals that may draw attention to 
it from the sea. I have provided for that ; and I have provided 
for the chance of your being outmanoeuvred afterwards, by Eng- 
lish, or other cruisers. Here are your sailing orders" (he took 
them from his pocket while he spoke), "your directions for tlie 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 153 

disposal of the Treasure, and your appointment of the day and the 
place for communicating again with me and my prisoners. I have 
done my part — go you, now, and do yours." 

Hearing the clearness with which he gave his orders ; knowing 
what the devilish scheme was that he had invented for preventing 
the recovery of the Treasure, even if our ships happened to meet 
and capture the pirates at sea ; remembering what the look and 
the speech of him had been, when he put his pistol to my head 
and Tom Packer's ; I began to understand how it was that this 
little, weak, weazen, wicked spider had got the first place and kept 
it among the villains about him. 

The mate moved ojff, with his orders, towards the sea. Before 
he got there, the Pirate Captain beckoned another of the crew to 
come to him ; and spoke a few words in his own, or in some other 
foreign language. I guessed what they meant, when I saw thirty 
of the pirates told off together, and set in a circle all round us. 
The rest were marched away after the mate. In the same manner 
the Sambos were divided next. Ten, including Christian George 
King, were left with us ; and the others were sent down to the 
canoes. When this had been done, the Pirate Captain looked at 
his watch ; pointed to some trees, about a mile off, which fringed 
the land as it rose from the beach ; said to an American among 
the pirates round us, who seemed to hold the place of second mate, 
" In two hours from this time ; " and then walked away briskly, 
with one of his men after him, to some baggage piled up below us 
on the beach. 

We were marched off at once to the shady place under the trees, 
and allowed to sit down there, in the cool, with our guard in a 
ring round us. Feeling certain from what I saw, and from what 
I knew to be contained in the written paper signed by Miss 
Mary on, that we were on the point of undertaking a long journey 
up the country, I anxiously examined my fellow prisoners to see 
how tit they looked for encountering bodily hardship and fatigue : 
to say nothing of mental suspense and terror, over and above. 

With all possible respect for an official gentleman, I must admit 
that Mr. Commissioner Pordage struck me as being, beyond any 
comparison, the most helpless individual in our unfortunate com- 
pany. What with the fright he had suffered, the danger he had 
gone through, and the bewilderment of finding himself torn clean 
away from his safe Government moorings, his poor unfortunate 
brains seemed to be as completely discomposed as his Diplomatic 
coat. He was perfectly harmless and quiet, but also perfectly 
light-headed — as anybody could discover who looked at his dazed 
eyes or listened to his maundering talk. I tried him with a word 



154 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

or two about our miserable situation ; thinking that, if any subject 
would get a trifle of sense out of him, it must surely be that. 

" You will observe," said Mr. Pordage, looking at the torn cuffs 
of his Diplomatic coat instead of at me, " that I cannot take cog- 
nisance of our situation. No memorandum of it has been drawn 
up; no report in connection with it has been presented to me. 
I cannot possibly recognise it until the necessary minutes and 
memorandums and reports have reached me through the proper 
channels. When our miserable situation presents itself to me, on 
paper, I shall bring it under the notice of Government ; and 
Government, after a proper interval, will bring it back again 
under my notice ; and then I shall have something to say about it. 
Not a minute before, — no, my man, not a minute before ! '• 

Speaking of Mr. Pordage's wanderings of mind, reminds me 
that it is necessary to say a w^ord next, about the much more 
serious case of Serjeant Drooce. The cut on his head, acted on by 
the heat of the climate, had driven him, to all appearance, stark 
mad. Besides the danger to himself, if he broke out before the 
pirates, there was the danger to the women and children, of trust- 
ing him among them — a misfortune which, in our captive con- 
dition, it was impossible to avoid. Most providentially, however 
(as I found on inquiry), Tom Packer, who had saved his life, had 
a power of controlling him, which none of the rest of us possessed. 
Some shattered recollection of the manner in which he bad been 
preserved from death, seemed to be still left in a corner of his 
memory. Whenever he showed symptoms of breaking out, Tom 
looked at him, and repeated with his hand and arm the action of 
cutting out right and left which had been the means of his saving 
the Serjeant. On seeing that, Drooce always huddled himself up 
close to Tom, and fell silent. We — that is. Packer and I — 
arranged it together that he was always to keep near Drooce, 
whatever happened, and however far we might be marched before 
we reached the place of our imprisonment. 

The rest of us men — meaning Mr. Macey, Mr. Fisher, two of 
my comrades of the Marines, and five of the sloop's crew — were, 
making allowance for a little smarting in our wounds, in tolerable 
health, and not half so much broken in spirit by troubles, past, 
present, and to come, as some persons might be apt to imagine. 
As for the seamen, especially, no stranger who looked at their 
jolly brown faces would ever have imagined that they were pris- 
oners, and in peril of their lives. They sat together, chewing 
their quids, and looking out good-humouredly at the sea, like a 
gang of liberty-men resting themselves on shore. " Take it easy, 
soldier," says one of the six, seeing me looking at him. "And, if 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 155 

you can't do that, take it as easy as you can." I thought, at the 
time, that many a wiser man might have given me less sensible 
advice than this, though it was only offered by a boatswain's mate. 

A movement among the j^irates attracted my notice to the 
beach below us, and I saw their Captain approaching our halting- 
place, having changed his fine clothes for garments that were fit to 
travel in. 

His coming back to us had the effect of producing unmistakable 
signs of preparation for a long journey. Shortly after he appeared, 
three Indians came up, leading three loaded mules ; and these were 
followed, in a few minutes, by two of the Sambos,. carrying between 
them a copper full of smoking meat and broth. After having been 
shared among the pirates, this mess was set down before us, with 
some wooden bowls floating about in it, to dip out the food with. 
Seeing that we hesitated before touching it, the Pirate Captain 
recommended us not to be too mealy-mouthed, as that was meat 
from our own stores on the Island, and the last we were likely to 
taste for a long time to come. The sailors, without any more ado 
about it, professed their readiness to follow this advice, muttering 
among themselves that good meat was a good thing, though the 
devil himself had cooked it. The Pirate Captain then, observing 
that we were all ready to accept the food, ordered the bonds that 
confined the hands of us men to be loosened and cast off, so that 
we might help ourselves. After we had served the women and 
children, we fell to. It was a good meal — though I can't say 
that I myself had much appetite for it. Jack, to use his own 
phrase, stowed away a double allowance. The jolly faces of the 
seamen lengthened a good deal, however, when they found there 
was nothing to drink afterwards but plain water. One of them, a 
fat man, named Short, went so far as to say that, in the turn 
things seemed to have taken, he should like to make his will 
before we started, as the stoppage of his grog and the stoppage 
of his life were two events that would occur uncommonly close 
together. 

When we had done, we were all ordered to stand up. The 
pirates approached me and the other men, to bind our arms again ; 
but, the Captain stopped them. 

" No," says he. "I want them to get on at a good pace ; and 
they will do that best with their arms free. Now, prisoners," he 
continued, addressing us, "I don't mean to have any lagging on 
the road. I have fed you up with good meat, and you have no 
excuse for not stepping out briskly — women, children, and all. 
You men are without weapons and without food, and you know 
nothing of the country you are going to travel through. If you 



156 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

are mad enough, in this helpless condition, to attempt escaping on 
the march, you will be shot, as sure as you all stand there, — and 
if the bullet misses, you will starve to death in forests that have 
no path and no end." 

Having addressed us in those words, he turned again to his men. 
I wondered then, as I had wondered once or twice already, what 
those private reasons might be, which he had mentioned in his 
written paper, for sparing the lives of us male prisoners. I hoped 
he would refer to them now — but I was disappointed. 

" While the country allows it," he went on, addressing his crew, 
" march in a square, and keep the prisoners inside. Whether it is 
man, woman, or child, shoot any one of them who tries to escape, 
on peril of being shot yourself if you miss. Put the Indians and 
mules in front, and the Sambos next to them. Draw up the pris- 
oners all together. Tell off seven men to march before them, and 
seven more for each side ; and leave the other nine for the rear- 
guard. A fourth mule for me, when I get tired, and another 
Indian to carry my guitar." 

His guitar ! To think of the murderous thief having a turn for 
strumming tunes, and wanting to cultivate it on such an expedition 
as ours ! I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the guitar 
brought forward in a neat green case, with the piratical skull and 
cross-bones and the Pirate Captain's initials painted on it in white. 

" I can stand a good deal," whispers Tom Packer to me, looking 
hard at the guitar ; " but con-found me, Davis, if it's not a trifle 
too much to be taken prisoner by such a fellow as that ! " 

The Pirate Captain lights another cigar. 

" March ! " says he, with a screech like a cat, and a flourish with 
his sword, of the sort that a stage-player would give at the head 
of a mock army. 

We all moved off, leaving the clump of trees to the right, going, 
we knew not whither, to unknown sufferings and an unknown fate. 
The land that lay before us was wild and open, without fences or 
habitations. Here and there, cattle wandered about over it, and a 
few stray Indians. Beyond, in the distance, as far as we could see, 
rose a prospect of mountains and forests. Above us, was the piti- 
less sun, in a sky that was too brightly blue to look at. Behind 
us, was the calm murmuring ocean, with the dear island home 
which the women and children had lost, rising in the distance 
like a little green garden on the bosom of tlie sea. After half-an- 
hour's walking, we began to descend into the plain, and the last 
glimpse of the Island of Silver-Store disappeared from our view. 

The order of march which we prisoners now maintained among 
ourselves, being the order which, with certain occasional variations. 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 157 

we observed for the next three days, I may as well give some 
description of in this place, before I get occupied with other 
things, and forget it. 

I myself, and the sailor I have mentioned under the name of 
Short, led the march. After us came Miss Maryon, and Mr. and 
Mrs. Macey. They were followed by two of my comrades of the 
Marines, with Mrs. Pordage, Mrs. Belltott, and two of the strongest 
of the ladies to look after them. Mr. Fisher, the ship's boy, and 
the three remaining men of the sloop's crew, with the rest of the 
women and children came next ; Tom Packer, taking care of Ser- 
jeant Drooce, brought up the rear. So long as we got on quickly 
enough, the pirates showed no disposition to interfere with our 
order of march ; but, if there were any signs of lagging — and God 
knows it was hard enough work for a man to walk under that 
burning sun ! — the villains threatened the weakest of our com- 
pany with the points of their swords. The younger among the 
children gave out, as might have been expected, poor things, very 
early on the march. Short and I set the example of taking two 
of them up, pick-a-back, which w^as followed directly by the rest 
of the men. Two of Mrs. Macey's three children fell to our share ; 
the eldest, travelling behind us on his father's back. Short hoisted 
the next in age, a girl, on his broad shoulders. I see him now as 
if it was yesterday, with the perspiration pouring down his fat face 
and bushy whiskers, rolling along as if he was on the deck of a 
ship, and making a sling of his neck-handkerchief, with his clever 
sailor's fingers, to support the little girl on his back. " I expect 
you'll marry me, my darling, when you grow up," says he, in his 
oily, joking voice. And the poor child, in her innocence, laid her 
weary head down on his shoulder, and gravely and faithfully prom- 
ised that she would. 

A lighter weight fell to my share. I had the youngest of the 
children, the pretty little boy, already mentioned, who had been 
deaf and numb from his birth. His mother's voice trembled sadly, 
as she thanked me for taking him up, and tenderly put his little 
dress right while she walked behind me. "He is very little and 
light of his age," says the poor lady, trying hard to speak steady. 
" He won't give you much trouble, Davis — he has always been a 
very patient child from the first." The boy's little frail arms 
clasped themselves round my neck while she was speaking; and 
something or other seemed to stop in my throat the cheerful an- 
swer that I wanted to make. I walked on with what must have 
looked, I am afraid, like a gruff" silence ; the poor child humming 
softly on my back, in his unchanging, dumb way, till he hummed 
himself to sleep. Often and often, since that time, in dreams, I 



158 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

have felt those small arms round my neck again, and have heard 
that dumb murmuring song in my ear, dying away fainter and 
fainter, till nothing was left but the light breath rising and falling 
regularly on my cheek, telling me that my little fellow-prisoner had 
forgotten his troubles in sleep. 

We marched, as well as I could guess, somewhere about seven 
miles that day — a short spell enough, judging by distance, but a 
terrible long one judging by heat. Our halting place was by the 
banks of a stream, across which, at a little distance, some wild 
pigs were swimming as we came up. Beyond us, was the same 
view of forests and mountains that I have already mentioned; 
and all round us, was a perfect wilderness of flowers. The shrubs, 
the bushes, the ground, all blazed again with magnificent colours, 
under the evening sun. When we were ordered to halt, wherever 
we set a child down, there that child had laps and laps full of 
flowers growing within reach of its hand. We sat on flowers, cat 
on flowers, slept at night on flowers — any chance handful of 
which would have been worth a golden guinea among the gentle- 
folks in England. It was a sight not easily described, to see 
niggers, savages, and pirates, hideous, filthy, and ferocious in the 
last degree to look at, squatting about grimly upon a natural car- 
pet of beauty, of the sort that is painted in pictures with pretty 
fairies dancing on it. 

The mules were unloaded, and left to roll among the flowers to 
their hearts' content. A neat tent was set up for the Pirate 
Captain, at the door of which, after eating a good meal, he laid 
himself down in a languishing attitude, with a nosegay in the 
bosom of his waistcoat, and his guitar on his knees, and jingled 
away at the strings, singing foreign songs, with a shrdl voice and 
with his nose conceitedly turned up in the air. I was obliged to 
caution Short and the sailors — or they would, to a dead certainty, 
have put all our lives in peril by openly laughing at him. 

We had but a poor supper that night. The pirates now kept 
the provisions they had brought from the Island, for their own 
use ; and we had to share the miserable starvation diet of the 
country, with the Indians and the Sambos. This consisted of 
black beans fried, and of things they call Tortillas, meaning, in 
plain English, flat cakes made of crushed Indian corn, and baked 
on a clay griddle. Not only was this food insipid, but the dirty 
manner in which the Indians prepared it, was disgusting. How- 
ever, complaint was useless : for we could see for ourselves that no 
other provision had been brought for the prisoners. I heard some 
grumbling among our men, and some little fretfulness among the 
children, which their mothers soon quieted. I myself was indiff'er- 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 159 

ent enough to the quality of the food ; for I had noticed a circum- 
stance, just before it was brought to us, which occuj^ied my mind 
with more serious considerations. One of the mules was unloaded 
near us, and I observed among the baggage a large bundle of new 
axes, doubtless taken from some ship. After puzzling my brains 
for some time to know what they could be wanted for, I came to 
the conclusion that they were to be employed in cutting our way 
through, when we came to the forests. To think of the kind of 
travelling which these preparations promised — if the view I took 
of them was the right one — and then to look at the women and 
children, exhausted by the first day's march, was sufficient to make 
any man uneasy. It weighed heavily enough on my mind, I know, 
when I woke up among the flowers, from time to time, that night. 

Our sleeping arrangements, though we had not a single civilised 
comfort, were, thanks to the flowers, simple and easy enough. 
For the first time in their lives, the women and children laid down 
together, with the sky for a roof, and the kind earth for a bed. 
We men shook ourselves down, as well as we could, all round 
them; and the pirates, relieving guard regularly, ranged them- 
selves outside of all. In that tropical climate, and at that hot 
time, the night was only pleasantly cool. The bubbling of the 
stream, and, now and then, the course of the breeze through the 
flowers, was all we heard. During the hours of darkness, it 
occurred to me — and I have no doubt the same idea struck my 
comrades — that a body of determined men, making a dash for it, 
might now have stood a fair chance of escaping. We were still 
near enough to the sea-shore to be certain of not losing our way ; 
and the plain was almost as smooth, for a good long run, as a 
natural race-course. However, the mere act of dwelling on such 
a notion, was waste of time and thought, situated as we were with 
regard to the women and children. They were, so to speak, the 
hostages who insured our submission to captivity, or to any other 
hardship that might be inflicted on us ; a result which I have no 
doubt the Pirate Captain had foreseen, when he made us all pris- 
oners together on taking possession of the Island. 

We were roused up at four in the morning, to travel on before 
the heat set in ; our march under yesterday's broiling sun having 
been only undertaken for the purpose of getting us away from the 
sea-shore, and from possible help in that quarter, without loss of 
time. We forded the stream, wading through it waist-deep : 
except the children, who crossed on our shoulders. An hour be- 
fore noon, we halted under two immense wild cotton-trees, about 
half a mile from a little brook, which probably ran into the stream 
we had passed in the morning. Late in the afternoon we were on 



160 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

foot again, and encamped for the night at three deserted huts, 
built of mud and poles. There were the remains of an enclosure 
here, intended, as I thought, for cattle ; and there was an old well, 
from which our supply of water was got. The greater part of the 
women were very tired and sorrowful that night ; but Miss Maryon 
did wonders in cheering them up. 

On the third morning, we began to skirt the edge of a mountain, 
carrying our store of water with us from the well. AVe men pris- 
oners had our full share of the burden. What with that, what 
with the way being all up hill, and what with the necessity of 
helping on the weaker members of our company, that day's march 
was the hardest I remember to have ever got through. Towards 
evening, after resting again in the middle of the day, we stopped 
for the night on the verge of the forest. A dim, lowering, awful 
sight it was, to look up at the mighty wall of trees, stretching in 
front, and on either side of us without a limit and without a break. 
Through the night, though there was no wind blowing over our 
encampment, we heard deep, moaning, rushing sounds rolling about, 
at intervals, in the great inner wilderness of leaves ; and, now and 
then, those among us who slept, were startled up by distant 
crashes in the depths of the forest — the death-knells of falling 
trees. We kept fires alight, in case of wild animals stealing out 
on us in the darkness ; and the flaring red light, and the thick, 
winding smoke, alternately showed and hid the forest-prospect in a 
strangely treacherous and ghostly way. The children shuddered 
with fear; even the Pirate Captain forgot, for the first time, to 
jingle his eternal guitar. 

When we were mustered in the morning for the march, I fully 
expected to see the axes unpacked. To my surprise, they were not 
disturbed. The Indians drew their long chopping-knives (called 
machetes in the language of that country) ; made for a place among 
the trees where I could see no signs of a path ; and began cutting 
at the bushes and shrubs, and at the wild vines and creepers, 
twdrling down together in all sorts of fantastic forms from the 
lofty branches. After clearing a few dozen yards in^^'ards they 
came out to us again, whooping and showing their wicked teeth, 
as they laid hold of the mules' halters to lead them on. The 
Pirate Captain, before we moved after, took out a pocket compass, 
set it, pondered over it for some time, shrugged his shoulders, and 
screeched out " March," as usual. We entered the forest, leading 
behind us the last chance of escape, and the last hope of ever get- 
ting back to the regions of humanity and civilisation. By this 
time, we had walked inland, as nearly as I could estimate, about 
thirty miles. 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 161 

The order of our march was now, of necessity, somewhat changed. 
We all followed each other in a long line, shut in, however, as 
before, in front and in rear, by the Indians, the Sambos, and the 
pirates. Though none of us could see a vestige of any path, it was 
clear that our guides knew where they were going ; for, we were 
never stopped by any obstacles, except the shrubs and wild-vines 
which they could cut through with their chopping-knivefs. Some- 
times, we marched under great branches which met like arches higli 
over our heads. Sometimes, the boughs were so low that we had 
to stoop to pass under them. Sometimes, we wound in and out 
among mighty trunks of trees, with their gnarled roots twisting up 
far above the ground, and with creepers in full flower twining down 
in hundreds from their lofty branches. The size of the leaves and 
the countless multitude of the trees, shut out the sun, and made a 
solemn dimness which it was awful and without hope to walk 
through. Hours would pass without our hearing a sound but the 
dreary rustle of our own feet over the leafy ground. At other 
times, whole troops of parrots, with feathers of all the colours of 
the rainbow, chattered and shrieked at us ; and processions of 
monkeys, fifty or sixty at a time, followed our progress in the 
boughs overhead : passing through the thick leaves with a sound 
like the rush of a steady wind. Every now and then, the children 
were startled by lizard-like creatures, three feet long, running up 
the trunks of the trees as we passed by them ; more than once, 
swarms of locusts tormented us, startled out of their hiding-places 
by the monkeys in the boughs. For five days we marched inces- 
santly through this dismal forest-region, only catching a clear 
glimpse of the sky above us, on three occasions in all that time. The 
distance we walked each day seemed to be regulated by the positions 
of springs and streams in the forest, which the Indians knew of. 
Sometimes those springs and streams lay near together ; and our 
day's work was short. Sometimes they were far apart ; and the 
march was long and weary. On all occasions, two of the Indians, 
followed by two of the Sambos, disappeared as soon as we encamped 
for the night ; and returned, in a longer or shorter time, bringing 
water with them. Towards the latter part of the journey, weari- 
ness had so completely mastered the weakest among our company, 
that they ceased to take notice of anything. They walked with- 
out looking to the right or to the left, and they eat their wretched 
food and lay down to sleep with a silent despair that was shocking. 
Mr. Pordage left off maundering now, and Serjeant Drooce was so 
quiet and biddable, that Tom Packer had an easy time of it with 
him at last. Those among us who still talked, began to get a 
habit of dropping our voices to a whisper. Short's jokes languished 

M 



162 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

and dwindled ; Miss Maryon's voice, still kind and tender as ever, 
began to lose its clearness ; and the poor children, when they got 
weary and cried, shed tears silently, like old people. It seemed as 
if the darkness and the hush of the endless forest had cast its shadow 
on our spirits, and had stolen drearily into our inmost hearts. 

On the sixth day, we saw the blessed sunshine on the ground 
before us, once more. Prisoners as we were, there was a feeling 
of freedom on stepping into the light again, and on looking up, 
without interruption, into the clear blue heaven, from which no 
human creature can keep any other human creature, when the time 
comes for rising to it. A turn in the path brought us out suddenly 
at an Indian village — a wretched place, made up of two rows of 
huts built with poles, the crevices between them stopped with mud, 
and the roofs thatched in the coarsest manner with palm-leaves. 
The savages squatted about, jumped to their feet in terror as we 
came in view ; but, seeing the Indians at the head of our party, 
took heart, and began chattering and screeching, just like the parrots 
we had left in the forest. Our guides answered in their gibberisli ; 
some lean, half-wild dogs yelped and howled incessantly ; and the 
pirates discharged their muskets and loaded them again, to make 
sure that their powder had not got damp on the march. No want 
of muskets among them now ! The noise and the light and the 
confusion, after the silence, darkness, and discipline that we had 
been used to for the last five days, so bewildered us all, that it was 
quite a relief to sit down on the ground and let the guard about us 
shut out our view on eveiy side. 

" Davis ! Are we at the end of the march ? " says Miss Mary on, 
touching my arm. 

The other women looked anxiously at me, as she put the ques- 
tion. I got on my feet, and saw the Pirate Captain communicating 
with the Indians of the village. His hands were making signs in 
the fussy foreign way, all the time he was speaking. Sometimes, 
they pointed away to where the forest began again beyond us ; and 
sometimes they went up both together to his mouth, as if he was 
wishful of getting a fresh supply of the necessaries of life. 

My eyes next turned towards the mules. Nobody was employed 
in unpacking the baggage ; nobody went near that bundle of axes 
which had weighed on my mind so much already, and the mystery 
of wdiich still tormented me in secret. I came to the conclusion 
that we were not yet at the end of our journey ; I communicated 
my opinion to Miss Maryon. She got up herself, with my help, 
and looked about her, and made the remark, very justly, that all 
the huts in the village would not suffice to hold us. At the same 
time, I pointed out to her that the mule which the Pirate Captain 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 163 

had ridden had been relieved of his saddle, and was being led away, 
at that moment, to a patch of grass behind one of the huts. 

"That looks as if we were not going much farther on," says I. 

" Thank Heaven if it be so, for the sake of the poor children ! " 
says Miss Maryon. "Davis, suppose something happened which 
gave us a chance of escaping? Do you think we could ever find 
our way back to the sea ? " 

"Not a hope of getting back, miss. If the pirates were to let 
us go this very instant, those pathless forests would keep us in 
prison for ever." 

" Too true ! Too true ! " she said, and said no more. 

In another half-hour we were roused up, and marched away from 
the village (as I had thought we should be) into the forest again. 
This time, though there was by no means so much cutting through 
the underwood needed as in our previous experience, we were ac- 
companied by at least a dozen Indians, w^io seemed to me to be 
following us out of sheer idleness and curiosity. We had walked, 
as well as I could calculate, more than an hour, and I was trudging 
along with the little deaf-and-dumb boy on my back, as usual, 
thinking, not very hopefully, of our future prospects, when I was 
startled by a moan in my ear from the child. One of his arms 
was trembling round my neck, and the other pointed away towards 
my right hand. I looked in that direction — and there, as if it 
had started up out of the ground to dispute our passage through 
the forest, was a hideous monster carved in stone, twice my height 
at least. The thing loomed out of a ghostly white, against the 
dark curtain of trees all round it. Spots of rank moss stuck about 
over its great glaring stone-face ; its stumpy hands were tucked up 
into its breast ; its legs and feet were four times the size of any 
human limbs ; its body and the flat space of spare stone which rose 
above its head, were all covered with mysterious devices — little 
grinning men's faces, heads of crocodiles and apes, twisting knots 
and twirling knobs, strangely shaped leaves, winding lattice- work ; 
legs, arms, fingers, toes, skulls, bones, and such like. The monstrous 
statue leaned over on one side, and was only kept from falling to 
the ground by the roots of a great tree which had wound them- 
selves all round the lower half of it. Altogether, it was as horrible 
and ghastly an object to come upon suddenly, in the unknown 
depths of a great forest, as the mind (or, at all events, my mind) 
can conceive. When I say that the first meeting with the statue 
struck me speechless, nobody can wonder that the children actually 
screamed with terror at the sight of it. 

" It's only a great big doll, my darling," says Short, at his wit's 
end how to quiet the little girl on his back. " We'll get a nice 



1G4 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

soft bit of wood soon, and show these nasty savages how to make 
a better one." 

While he was speaking, Miss Maryon was close behind me, 
soothing the deaf-and-dumb boy by signs which I could not under- 
stand. 

"I have heard of these things, Davis," she says. "They are 
idols, made by a lost race of people, who lived, no one can say how 
many hundred or how many thousand years ago. That hideous 
thing was carved and worshipped while the great tree that now 
supports it was yet a seed in the ground. We must get the 
children used to these stone monsters. I believe we are coming 
to many more of them. I believe we are close to the remains of 
one of those mysterious ruined cities which have long been supposed 
to exist in this part of the world." 

Before I could answer, the word of command from the rear 
drove us on again. In passing the idol, some of the pirates fired 
their muskets at it. The echoes from the reports rang back on us 
with a sharp rattling sound. We pushed on a few paces, when 
the Indians a-head suddenly stopped, flourished their chopping- 
knives, and all screamed out together " El Palacio ! " The 
Englishmen among the pirates took up the cry, and, running 
forward through the trees on either side of us, roared out, "The 
Palace ! " Other voices joined theirs in other tongues ; and, for a 
minute or two, there was a general confusion of everybody, — the 
first that had occurred since we were marched away, prisoners, from 
the sea-shore. 

I tightened my hold of the child on my back ; took Miss Maryon 
closer to me, to save her from being roughly jostled by the men 
about us ; and marched up as near to the front as the press and 
the trees would let me. Looking over the heads of the Indians, 
and between the trunks, I beheld a sight which I shall never 
forget : no, not to my dying day. 

A wilderness of ruins spread out before me, overrun by a forest 
of trees. In every direction, look where I would, a frightful confu- 
sion of idols, pillars, blocks of stone, heavy walls, and flights of 
steps, met my eye ; some, whole and upright ; others, broken and 
scattered on the ground ; and all, whatever their condition, over- 
grown and clasped about by roots, branches, and curling vines, that 
writhed round them like so many great snakes. Every here and 
there, strange buildings stood up, with walls on the tops of which 
three men might have marched abreast — buildings with their roofs 
burst off or tumbled in, and with the trees springing up from inside, 
and waving their restless shadows mournfully over the ruins. High 
in the midst of this desolation, towered a broad platform of rocky 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 165 

earth, scraped away ou three sides, so as to make it unapproachable 
except by scaling ladders. On the fourth side, the flat of the plat- 
form was reached by a flight of stone steps, of such mighty size and 
strength that they might have been made for the use of a race of 
giants. They led to a huge building girded all round with a row 
of thick pillars, long enough and broad enough to cover the whole 
flat space of ground ; solid enough, as to the walls, to stand for ever ; 
but broken in, at most places, as to the roof; and overshadowed by 
the trees that sprang up from inside, like the smaller houses already 
mentioned, below it. This was the dismal ruin. which was called 
the Palace ; and this was the Prison in the Woods which was to be 
the place of our captivity. 

The screeching voice of the Pirate Captain restored order in our 
ranks, and sent the Indians forward with their chopping-knives to 
the steps of the Palace. We were directed to follow them across 
the ruins, and in and out among the trees. Out of every ugly crevice 
and crack in the great stairs, there sprouted up flowers, long grasses, 
and beautiful large-leafed plants and bushes. When we had toiled 
to the top of the flight, we could look back from the height over the 
dark waving top of the forest behind us. More than a glimpse of 
the magnificent sight, however, was not allowed : we were ordered 
still to follow the Indians, They had already disappeared in the 
inside of the Palace ; and we went in after them. 

We found ourselves, first, under a square portico, supported upon 
immense flat slabs of stone, which were carved all over, at top and 
bottom, with death's-heads set in the midst of circles of sculptured 
flowers, I guessed the length of the portico to be, at the very least, 
three hundred feet. In the inside wall of it, appeared four high 
gaping doorways ; three of them were entirely choked up by fallen 
stones : so jammed together, and so girt about by roots and climb- 
ing plants, that no force short of a blast of gunpowder, could pos- 
sibly have dislodged them. The fourth entrance had, at some former 
time, been kept just clear enough to allow of the passing of one man 
at once through the gap that had been made in the fallen stones. 
Through this, the only passage left into the Palace, or out of it, we 
followed the Indians into a great hall, nearly one-half of which was 
still covered by the remains of the roof. In the unsheltered half: 
surrounded by broken stones and with a carved human head, five times 
the size of life, leaning against it, rose the straight, naked trunk of 
a beautiful tree, that shot up high above the ruins, and dropped its 
enormous branches from the very top of it, bending down towards 
us, in curves like plumes of immense green feathers. In this hall, 
which was big enough to hold double our number, we were ordered 
to make a halt, while the Pirate Captain, accompanied by three of 



166 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

his crew, followed the Indians through a doorway, leading oflF to 
the left liand, as we stood with our backs to the portico. In front 
of us, towards the right, was another doorway, through which we 
could see some of the Indians, cutting away with their knives, right 
and left, at the overspreading underwood. Even the noise of the 
hacking, and the hum and murmur of the people outside, who were 
unloading the mules, seemed to he sounds too faint and trifling to 
break the awful stillness of the ruins. To my ears, at least, the 
unearthly silence was deepened rather than broken by the few feeble 
sounds which tried to disturb it. The wailings of the poor children 
were stifled within them. The whispers of the women, and the 
heavy breathing of the overlaboured men, sank and sank gradually 
till they were heard no more. Looking back now, at tlie whole 
course of our troubles, I think I can safely say that nothing — not 
even the first discovery of the treachery on the Island — tried our 
courage and endurance like that interval of speechless waiting in 
the Palace, with the hush of the ruined city, and the dimness of the 
endless forest, all about us. 

AVhen we next saw the Pirate Captain, he appeared at the 
doorway to the right, just as the pirates began to crowd in 
from the portico, witli the baggage they had taken from the 
mules. 

"There is the way for the Buccaniers," squeaks the Pirate Cap- 
tain, addressing the American mate, and pointing to the doorway 
on the left. " Three big rooms, that will hold you all, and that 
have more of the roof left on them than any of the others. The 
prisoners," he continues, turning to us, and pointing to the door- 
way behind him, " will file in, that way, and will find two rooms 
for them, with the ceilings on the floor, and the trees in their 
places. I myself, because my soul is big, shall live alone in this 
grand hall. My bed shall be there in the sheltered corner ; and I 
shall eat, and drink, and smoke, and sing, and enjoy myself, with 
one eye always on my prisoners, and the other eye always on my 
guard outside." 

Having delivered this piece of eloquence, he pointed with his 
sword to the prisoners' doorway. We all passed through it quickly, 
glad to be out of the sight and hearing of him. 

The two rooms set apart for us, communicated with each other. 
The inner one of the two had a second doorway, leading, as I 
supposed, further into the building, but so choked up by rubbish, 
as to be impassable, except by climbing, and that must have been 
skilful climbing too. Seeing that this accident cut oflf all easy 
means of approach to the room from the pirates' side, we deter- 
mined, supposing nobody meddled with us, to establish the women 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 167 

and children here; and to take the room nearest to the Pirate 
Captain and his guard for ourselves. 

The first thing to be done was to clear away the rubbish in the 
women's room. The ceiling was, indeed, as the Pirate Captain 
had told us, all on the floor; and the growth of trees, shrubs, 
weeds, and flowers, springing up everywhere among the fragments 
of stone, was so prodigious in this part of the Palace, that, but 
for the walls with their barbarous sculptures all round, we should 
certainly have believed ourselves to be encamped in the forest, 
without a building near us. All the lighter parts of the rubbish 
in the women's room we disposed of, cleverly, by piling it in the 
doorway on the pirates' side, so as to make any approach from 
that direction all but impossible, even by climbing. The heavy 
blocks of stone — and it took two men to lift some of them that 
were not the heaviest — we piled up in the middle of the floor. 
Having by this means cleared away plenty of spacs round the walls, 
we gathered up all the litter of young branches, bushes, and leaves 
which the Indians had chopped away ; added to them as much as 
was required of the underwood still standing ; and laid the whole 
smooth and even, to make beds. I noticed, while we were at 
this worky that the ship's boy — whose name was Robert — was 
particularly helpful and considerate with the children, when it be- 
came necessary to quiet them and to get them to lie down. He 
was a rough boy to look at, and not very sharp ; but he managed 
better, and was more naturally tender-hearted with the little ones 
than any of the rest of us. This may seem a small thing to men- 
tion ; but Robert's attentive ways with the children, attached them 
to him ; and that attachment, as will be hereafter shown, turned 
out to be of great benefit to us, at a very dangerous and very im- 
portant time. 

Our next piece of work was to clear our own room. It was 
close at the side of the Palace ; and a break in the outward wall 
looked down over the sheer precipice on which the building stood. 
We stopped this up, breast high, in case of accidents, with the 
rubbish on the floor ; we then made our beds, just as we had made 
the women's beds already. 

A little later, we heard the Pirate Captain in the hall, which 
he kept to himself for his big soul and his little body, giving orders 
to the American mate about the guard. On mustering the pirates, 
it turned out that two of them, who had been wounded in the 
fight on the Island, were unfit for duty. Twenty-eight, therefore, 
remained. These, the Pirate Captain divided into companies of 
seven, who were to mount guard, in turn, for a spell of six hours 
each company ; the relief coming round, as a matter of course, four 



168 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

times in the twenty-four hours. Of the guard of seven, two were 
stationed under the portico ; one was phiced as a look-out, on the 
top landing of the great flight of steps ; and two were appointed 
to patrol the ground below, in front of the Palace. This left only 
two men to watch the three remaining sides of the building. So 
far as any risks of attack were concerned, the precipices at the 
back and sides of the Palace were a sufficient defence for it, if a 
good watch was kept on the weak side. But what the Pirate 
Captain dreaded was the chance of our escaping; and he would 
not trust the precipices to keep us, knowing we had sailors in our 
company, and suspecting that they might hit on some substitute 
for ropes, and lower themselves and their fellow-prisoners down 
from the back or the sides of the Palace, in the dark. Accord- 
ingly, the Pirate Captain settled it tliat two men out of each com- 
pany should do double duty, after nightfall : the choice of them 
to be decided by casting dice. This gave four men to patrol round 
the sides and the back of the building : a sufficient number to 
keep a bright look-out. The pirates nuirmured a little at the 
prospect of double duty; but, there was no remedy for it. The 
Indians, having a superstitious horror of remaining in the ruined 
city after dark, had bargained to be allowed to go back to their 
village, every afternoon. And, as for the Sambos, the Pirate 
Captain knew them better than the English liad known them at 
Silver-Store, and would have nothing to do with them in any 
matter of importance. 

The setting of the watch was completed without much delay. 
If any of us had felt the slightest hope of escaping, up to this 
time, the position of our prison and the number of sentinels 
appointed to guard it, would have been more than enough to 
extinguish that hope for ever. 

An hour before sunset, the Indians — whose only business at the 
Palace was to supply us with food from the village, and to prepare 
the food for eating — made their last batch of Tortillas, and then 
left the ruins in a body, at the usual trot of those savages when 
they are travelling in a hurry. 

When the sun had set, the darkness came down upon us, I 
might almost say, with a rush. Bats whizzed about, and the low 
warning hum of mosquitos sounded close to our ears. Flying 
beetles, with lights in their heads, each light as bright as tlie 
light of a dozen glowworms, sparkled through the darkness, in a 
wonderful manner, all night long. When one of them settled on 
the walls, he lighted up the hideous sculptures for a yard all round 
him, at the very least. Outside, in the forest, the dreadful still- 
ness seemed to be drawing its breath, from time to time, when 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 169 

the night-wind swept lightly through the million-million leaves. 
Sometimes, the surge of monkeys travelling through the boughs, 
burst out with a sound like waves on a sandy shore ; sometimes, 
the noise of falling branches and trunks rang out suddenly with a 
crash, as if the great ruins about us were splitting into pieces ; 
sometimes, when the silence was at its deepest — when even the 
tread of the watch outside had ceased — the quick rustle of a lizard 
or a snake, sounded treacherously close at our ears. It was long 
before the children in the women's room were all quieted and 
hushed to sleep — longer still before we, their elders, could com- 
pose our spirits for the night. After all sounds died away among 
us, and when I thought that I was the only one still awake, I 
heard Miss Maryon's voice saying, softly, "God help and deliver 
us ! " A man in our room, moving on his bed of leaves, repeated 
the words after her ; and the ship's boy, Robert, half-asleep, half- 
awake, whispered to himself sleepily, "Amen!" After that, the 
silence returned upon us, and was broken no more. So the night 
passed — the first night in our Prison in the Woods. 

With the morning, came the discovery of a new project of the 
Pirate Captain's, for which none of us had been prepared. 

Soon after sunrise, the Pirate Captain looked into our room, 
and ordered all the men in it out into the large hall, where he 
lived with his big soul and his little body. After eyeing us nar- 
rowly, he directed three of the sailors, myself, and two of my 
comrades, to step apart from the rest. When we had obeyed, 
the bundle of axes which had troubled my mind so much, was 
brought into the hall ; and four men of the guard, then on duty, 
armed with muskets and pistols, were marched in afterwards. 
Six of the axes were chosen and put into our hands, the Pirate 
Captain pointing warningly, as we took them, to the men with 
fire-arms in the front of us. He and his mate, both armed to the 
teeth, then led the way out to the steps ; we followed ; the other 
four pirates came after us. We were formed, down the steps, in 
single file ; the Pirate Captain at the head ; I myself next to 
him ; a pirate next to me ; and so on to the end, in such order as 
to keep a man with a loaded musket between each one or two of 
us prisoners. I looked behind me as we started, and saw two of 
the Sambos — that Christian George King was one of them — 
following us. We marched round the back of the Palace, and 
over the ruins beyond it, till we came to a track through the forest, 
the first I had seen. After a quarter of an hour's walking, I saw 
the sunlight, bright beyond the trees in front of us. In another 
minute or two, we stood under the clear sky, and beheld at our feet 
a broad river, running with a swift silent current, and overshadowed 



170 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

by the forest, rising as thick as ever on the bank that was opposite 
to us. 

On the bank where we stood, the trees were young ; some great 
tempest of past years having made havoc in this part of the forest, 
and torn away the old growth to make room for the new. The 
young trees grew up, mostly, straight and slender, — that is to say, 
slender for South America, the slightest of them being, certainly, 
as thick as my leg. After peeping and peering about at the tim- 
ber, with the look of a man who owned it all, the Pirate Captain 
sat himself down cross-legged on the grass, and did us the honour 
to address us. 

" Aha ! you English, what do you think I have kept you alive 
for?" says he. "Because I am fond of you? Bah ! Because I 
don't like to kill you ? Bah ! What for, then ? Because I want 
the use of your arms to work for me. See those trees ! " He 
waved his hand backwards and forwards, over the whole prospect. 
" Cut them all down — lop off the branches — smooth them into 
poles — shape them into beams — chop them into planks. Cama- 
rado ! " he went on, turning to the mate, " I mean to roof in the 
Palace again, and to lay new floors over the rubbish of stones. 
I will make the big house good and dry to live in, in the rainy 
weather — I will barricade the steps of it for defence against an 
army, — I will make it my strong castle of retreat for me and my 
men, and our treasure, and our prisoners, and all that we have, 
when the English cruisers of the devil get too many for us along 
the coast. To work, you six ! Look at those four men of mine, 
— their muskets are loaded. Look at these two Sambos who 
will stop here to fetch help if they want it. Remember the 
women and children you have left at the Palace — and at your 
peril and at their peril, turn those axes in your hands from their 
proper work ! You understand? You English fools?" 

With those words he jumped to his feet, and ordered the 
niggers to remain and place themselves at the orders of our 
guard. Having given these last directions, and having taken 
his mate's opinion as to whether three of the Buccaniers would 
not be enough to watch the Palace in the day, when the six 
stoutest men of the prisoners were away from it, the Pirate 
Captain offered his little weazen arm to the American, and 
strutted back to his castle, on better terms with himself than 
ever. 

As soon as he and the mate were gone. Christian George King 
tumbled himself down on the grass, and kicked up his ugly heels 
in convulsions of delight. 

"Oh, golly, golly, golly!" says he. "You dam English do 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 171 

work, and Christian George King look on. Yup, So-Jeer ! whack 
at them tree ! " 

I paid no attention to the brute, being better occupied in 
noticing my next comrade. Short, I had remarked that all the 
while the Pirate Captain was speaking, he was looking hard at 
the river, as if the sight of a large sheet of water did his sailorly 
eyes good. When we began to use the axes, greatly to my 
astonishment, he buckled to at his work like a man who had his 
whole heart in it: chuckling to himself at ^every chop, and 
wagging his head as if he was in the forecastle again telling his 
best yarns. 

"You seem to be in spirits. Short ?" I says, setting to on a tree 
close by him. 

" The river's put a notion in my head," says he. " Chop away, 
Gill, as hard as you can, or they may hear us talking." 

"What notion has the river i^ut in your head?" I asked that 
man, following his directions. 

" You don't know where that river runs to, I suppose ? " says 
Short. " No more don't I. But, did it say anything particular 
to you. Gill, when you first set eyes on it? It said to me, as 
plain as words could speak, ' I'm the road out of this. Come and 
try me ! ' — Steady ! Don't stop to look at the water. Chop 
away, man, chop away." 

" The road out of this ? " says I. "A road without any coaches. 
Short. I don't see so much as the ruins of one old canoe lying 
about anywhere." 

Short chuckles again, and buries his axe in his tree. 

"What are we cutting down these here trees for?" says he. 

"Roofs and floors for the Pirate Captain's castle," says I. 

^^ Rafts for ourselves/" says he, with another tremendous chop 
at the tree, which brought it to the ground — the first that had 
fallen. 

His words struck through me as if I had been shot. For the 
first time since our imprisonment I now saw, clear as daylight, 
a chance of escape. Only a chance, to be sure; but, still a chance. 

Although the guard stood several paces away from us, and could 
by no possibility hear a word that we said, through the noise of 
the axes, Short was too cautious to talk any more. 

"Wait till night," he said, lopping the branches off" the tree. 
"Pass the word on in a whisper to the nearest of our men to 
work with a will ; and say, with a wink of your eye, there's a good 
reason for it." 

After we had been allowed to knock oft' for that day, the Pirates 
had no cause to complain of the work we had done ; and they re- 



172 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

ported us to the Pirate Captain as obedient and industrious, so far. 
When we lay down at night, I took the next place on the leaves 
to Short. We waited till the rest were asleep, and till we heard 
the Pirate Captain snoring in the great hall, before we began to 
talk again about the river and the rafts. This is the amount of 
what Short whispered in my ear on that occasion : 

He told me he had calculated that it would take two large rafts 
to bear all our company, and that timber enough to make such 
two rafts might be cut down by six men in ten days, or, at most, 
in a fortnight. As for the means of fastening the rafts — the 
lashings, he called them — tlie stout vines and creepers supplied 
them abundantly ; and the timbers of both rafts might be connected 
together, in this way, firmly enough for river navigation, in about 
five hours. That was the very shortest time the job would take, 
done by the willing hands of men who knew that they were work- 
ing for their lives, said Short. 

These were the means of escape. How to turn them to account 
was the next question. Short could not answer it ; and though I 
tried all that night, neither could I. 

The difficulty was one which, I think, might have puzzled wiser 
heads than ours. How were six-and-thirty living souls (being the 
number of us prisoners, including the children) to be got out of the 
Palace safely, in the face of the guard that watched it? And, even 
if that was accomplished, when could we count on gaining five 
hours all to ourselves for the business of making the rafts 1 The 
compassing of either of these two designs, absolutely necessary as 
they both were to our escape, seemed to be nothing more or less 
than a rank impossibility. Towards morning, I got a wild notion 
into my head about letting ourselves down from the back of the 
Palace, in the dark, and taking our chance of being able to seize 
the sentinels at that part of the building, unawares, and gag them 
before tliey could give the alarm to the pirates in front. But, 
Short, when I mentioned my plan to him, would not hear of it. 
He said that men by themselves — provided they had not got a 
madman, like Drooce, and a maundering old gentleman, like Mr. 
Pordage, among them — might, perhaps, run some such desperate 
risk as I proposed ; but, that letting women and children, to say 
nothing of Drooce and Pordage, down a precipice in the dark, with 
make-shift ropes which might give way at a moment's notice, was 
out of the question. It was impossible, on further reflection, not 
to see that Short's view of the matter was the right one. I ac- 
knowledged as much, and then I put it to Short whether our 
wisest course would not be to let one or two of the sharpest of 
our fellow-prisoners into our secret, and see what they said. 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 173 

Short asked me which two I had in my mind when I made that 
proposal ? 

"Mr. Macey," says I, "because he is naturally quick, and has 
improved his gifts by learning, and Miss Maryon " 

"How can a woman help us?" says Short, breaking in on me. 

" A woman with a clear head and a high courage and a patient 
resolution — all of which Miss Maryon has got, above all the world 

— may do more to help us, in our present strait, than any man of 
our company," says I. 

" Well," says Short, " I dare say you're right. Speak to any- 
body you please. Gill ; but, whatever you do, jnan, stick to it at 
the trees. Let's get the timber down — that's the first thing to 
be done, anyhow." 

Before we were mustered for work, I took an opportunity of 
privately mentioning to Miss Maryon and Mr. Macey what had 
passed between Short and me. They were both thunderstruck at 
the notion of the rafts. Miss Maryon, as I had expected, made 
lighter of the terrible difficulties in the way of carrying out our 
scheme than Mr. Macey did. 

" We are left here to watch and think, all day," she whis- 
pered — and I could almost hear the quick beating of her heart. 
" While you are making the best of your time among the trees, we 
will make the best of ours in the Palace. I can say no more, now 

— I can hardly speak at all for thinking of what you have told 
me. Bless you, bless you, for making me hope once more ! Go 
now — we must not risk the consequences of being seen talking 
together. When you come back at night, look at me. If I close 
my eyes, it is a sign that nothing has been thought of yet. If I 
keep them open, take the first safe opportunity of speaking secretly 
to me or to Mr. Macey." 

She turned away ; and I went back to my comrades. Half an 
hour afterwards, we were off for our second day's work among the 
trees. 

When we came back, I looked at Miss Maryon. She closed her 
eyes. So, nothing had been thought of, yet. 

Six more days we worked at cutting down the trees, always mer- 
iting the same good character for industry from our pirate-guard. 
Six more evenings I looked at Miss Maryon ; and six times her 
closed eyes gave me the same disheartening answer. On the ninth 
day of our work. Short whispered to me, that if we plied our axes 
for three days longer, he considered we should have more than 
timber enough down, to make the rafts. He had thought of noth- 
ing, I had thought of nothing. Miss Maryon and Mr. Macey had 
thought of nothing. I was beginning to get low in spirits ; but. 



174 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

Short was just as cool and easy as ever. "Chop away, Davis," 
was all he said. " The river won't run dry yet awhile. Chop 
away ! " 

We knocked off earlier than usual that day, the pirates having 
a feast in prospect, off a wild hog. It was still broad daylight 
(out of the forest) when we came back, and when I looked once 
more in Miss Maryon's face. 

I saw a flush in her cheeks ; and her eyes met mine brightly. 
My heart beat quicker at the glance of them ; for I saw that the 
time had come, and that the difficulty was conquered. 

We waited till the light was fading, and the pirates were in the 
midst of their feast. Then, she beckoned me into the inner room, 
and I sat down by her in the dimmest corner of it. 

" You have thought of something, at last, miss ? " 

" I have. But the merit of the thought is not all mine. Chance 
— no ! Providence — suggested the design ; and the instrument 
with which its merciful Wisdom has worked, is — a child." 

She stopped, and looked all round her anxiously, before she 
went on. 

"This afternoon," she says, "I was sitting against the trunk of 
that tree, thinking of what has been the subject of my thoughts 
ever since you spoke to me. My sister's little girl was whiling 
away the tedious time, by asking Mr. Kitten to tell her the names 
of the different plants which are still left growing about the room. 
You know he is a learned man in such matters ? " 

I knew that ; and have, I beheve, formerly given that out, for 
my Lady to take in writing. 

"I was too much occupied," she went on, "to pay attention to 
them, till they came close to the tree against which I was sitting. 
Under it and about it, there grew a plant with very elegantly- 
shaped leaves, and with a kind of berry on it. The child showed 
it to Mr. Kitten ; and saying, ' Those berries look good to eat,' 
stretched out her hand towards them. Mr. Kitten stopped her. 
'You must never touch that,' he said. 'Why not?' the child 
asked. ' Because if you eat much of it, it would poison you,' 
'And if I only eat a little?' said the child, laughing. 'If you 
only eat a little,' said Mr. Kitten, 'it would throw you into a deep 
sleep — a sleep that none of us could wake you from, when it was 
time for breakfast — a sleep that would make your mamma think 
you were dead.' Those words were hardly spoken, when the thought 
that I have now to tell you of, flashed across my mind. But, before 
I say anything more, answer me one question. Am I right in sup- 
posing that our attempt at escape must be made in the night ? " 

"At night, certainly," says I, "because we can be most sure, 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 175 

then, that the pirates off guard are all in this building, and not 
likely to leave it." 

"I understand. Now, Davis, hear what I have observed of the 
habits of the men who keep us imprisoned in this place. The first 
change of guard at night, is at nine o'clock. At that time, seven 
men come in from watching, and nine men (the extra, night-guard) 
go out to replace them ; each party being on duty, as you know, 
for six hours. I have observed, at the nine o'clock change of 
guard, that the seven men who come off duty, and the nine who 
go on, have a supply of baked cakes of Indian corn, reserved ex- 
pressly for their use. They divide the food between them; the 
Pirate Captain (who is always astir at the chaage of guard) gener- 
ally taking a cake for himself, when the rest of the men take theirs. 
This makes altogether, seventeen men who partake of food espe- 
cially reserved for them, at nine o'clock. So far you understand 
me?" 

" Clearly, miss." 

" The next thing I have noticed, is the manner in which that 
food is prepared. About two hours before sunset, the Pirate Cap- 
tain walks out to smoke, after he has eaten the meal which he calls 
his dinner. In his absence from the hall, the Indians light their 
fire on the unsheltered side of it, and prepare the last batch of 
food before they leave us for the night. They knead up two sep- 
arate masses of dough. The largest is the first which is separated 
into cakes and baked. That is taken for the use of us prisoners 
and of the men who are off duty all the night. The second and 
smaller piece of dough is then prepared for the nine o'clock change 
of guard. On that food — come nearer, Davis, I must say it in a 
whisper — on that food all our chances of escape now turn. If we 
can drug it unobserved, the pirates who go off duty, the pirates 
who go on duty, and the Captain, who is more to be feared than 
all the rest, will be as absolutely insensible to our leaving the 
Palace, as if they were every one of them dead men." 

I was unable to speak — I was unable even to fetch my breath 
at those words. 

"I have taken Mr. Kitten, as a matter of necessity, into our 
confidence," she said. " I have learnt from him a simple way of 
obtaining the juice of that plant which he forbade the child to eat. 
I have also made myself acquainted with the quantity which it is 
necessary to use for our purpose ; and I have resolved that no 
hands but mine shall be charged with the work of kneading it 
into the dough." 

" Not you, miss, — not you. Let one of us — let me — run 
that risk." 



176 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

"You have work enough and risk enough already," said Miss 
Maryon. " It is time that the women, for whom you have suffered 
and ventured so much, should take their share. Besides, the risk 
is not great, where the Indians only are concerned. They are idle 
and curious. I have seen, with my own eyes, that they are as 
easily tempted away from their occupation by any chance sight 
or chance noise as if they were children ; and I have already 
arranged with Mr. Macey that he is to excite their curiosity by 
suddenly pulling down one of the loose stones in that doorway, 
when the right time comes. The Indians are certain to run in 
here to find out what is the matter. Mr. Macey will tell them 
that he has seen a snake, — they \v\\\ hunt for the creature (as I 
have seen them hunt, over and over again, in this ruined place) — 
and while they are so engaged, the opportunity that I want, the 
two minutes to myself, which are all that I require, will be mine. 
Dread the Pirate Captain, Davis, for the slightest caprice of his 
may ruin all our hopes, — but never dread the Indians, and never 
doubt me." 

Nobody, who had looked in her face at that moment — or at 
any moment that ever I knew of — could have doubted her. 

" There is one thing more," she went on. " When is the 
attempt to be made?" 

"In three days' time," I answered; "there will be timber 
enough down to make the rafts." 

" In three days' time, then, let us decide the question of our 
freedom or our death." She spoke those words with a firmness 
that amazed me. " Rest now," she said. " Rest and hope." 

The third day was the hottest we had yet experienced ; we were 
kept longer at work than usual ; and when we had done, we left 
on the bank enough, and more than enough, of timber and poles, to 
make both the rafts. 

The Indians had gone when we got back to the Palace, and the 
Pirate Captain was still smoking on the flight of steps. As we 
crossed the hall, I looked on one side and saw the Tortillas set 
up in a pile, waiting for the men who came in and went out at 
nine o'clock. 

At the door which opened between our room and the women's 
room, Miss Maryon was waiting for us. 

" Is it done ? " I asked in a whisper. 

"It is done," she answered. 

It was, then, by Mr. Macey's watch (which he had kept hidden 
about him throughout our imprisonment), seven o'clock. We had 
two hours to wait : hours of suspense, but hours of rest also for 
the overworked men who had been cutting the wood. Before I 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 177 

lay down, I looked into the inner room. The women were all 
sitting together ; and I saw by the looks they cast on me that 
Miss Maryon had told them of what was coming with the night. 
The children were much as usual, playing quiet games among 
themselves. In the men's room, I noticed that Mr. Macey had 
posted himself along with Tom Packer, close to Serjeant Drooce, and 
that Mr. Fisher seemed to be taking great pains to make himself 
agreeable to Mr. Pordage. I was glad to see that the two gen- 
tlemen of the company, who were quick-witted and experienced 
in most things, were already taking in hand the two unreasonable 
men. 

The evening brought no coolness with it. The heat was so op- 
pressive that we all panted under it. The stillness of the forest 
was awful. We could almost hear the falling of the leaves. 

Half-past seven, eight, half-past eight, a quarter to nine — Nine. 
The tramp of feet came up the steps on one side, and the tramp 
of feet came into the hall, on the other. There was a confusion of 
voices, — then, the voice of the Pirate Captain, speaking in his own 
language, — then, the voice of the American mate, ordering out the 
guard, — then silence. 

I crawled to the door of our room, and laid myself down behind 
it, where I could see a strip of the hall, being that part of it in 
which the way out was situated. Here, also, the Pirate Captain's 
tent had been set up, about twelve or fourteen feet from the door. 
Two torches were burning before it. By their light, I saw the 
guard on duty file out, each man munching his Tortilla, and each 
man grumbling over it. At the same time, in the part of the hall 
which I could not see, I heard the men off duty grumbhng also. 
The Pirate Captain, who had entered his tent the minute before, 
came out of it, and calling to the American mate, at the far 
end of the hall, asked sharply in English, what that murmuring 
meant. 

"The men complain of the Tortillas," the mate tells him. 
" They say, they are nastier than ever to-night." 

" Bring me one, and let me taste it," said the Captain. I had 
often before heard people talk of their hearts being in their mouths, 
but I never really knew what the sensation was, till I heard that 
order given. 

The Tortilla was brought to him. He nibbled a bit off it, spat 
the morsel out with disgust, and threw the rest of the cake away. 

"Those Indian beasts have burnt the Tortillas," he said, "and 
their dirty hides shall suffer for it to-morrow morning." With 
those words, he whisked round on his heel, and went back into his 
tent. 

N 



178 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

Some of the men had crept up behind me, and, looking over my 
head, had seen what I saw. They passed the account of it in 
whispers to those who could not see ; and they, in their turn, 
repeated it to the women. In five minutes everybody in the two 
rooms knew that the scheme had failed with the very man whose 
sleep it was most important to secure. I heard no stifled crying 
among the women or stifled cursing among the men. The despair 
of that time was too deep for tears, and too deep for words. 

I myself could not take my eyes oft' the tent. In a little while 
he came out of it again, putting and panting with the heat. He 
lighted a cigar at one of the torches, and laid himself down on his 
cloak just inside the doorway leading into the portico, so that all 
the air from outside might blow over him. Little as he was, he 
was big enough to lie right across the narrow way out. 

He smoked and he smoked, slowly and more slowly^ for, what 
seemed to me to be, hours, but for what, by the watch, was little 
more than ten minutes after all. Then, tlie cigar dropped out 
of his mouth — his hand sought for it, and sank lazily by his side 
— his head turned over a little towards the door — and he fell off: 
not into the drugged sleep that there was safety in, but into his 
light, natural sleep, which a touch on his body might have disturbed. 

"Now's the time to gag him," says Short, creeping up close to 
me, and taking ofi" his jacket and shoes. 

" Steady," says I. " Don't let's try that till we can try nothing 
else. There are men asleep near us who have not eaten the 
drugged cakes — the Pirate Captain is Hght and active — and if 
the gag slips on his mouth, we are all done for. I'll go to his 
head, Short, with my jacket ready in my hands. When I'm there, 
do you lead the way with your mates, and step gently into the 
portico, over his body. Every minute of your time is precious on 
account of making the rafts. Leave the rest of the men to get 
the women and children over; and leave me to gag him if he stirs 
while we are getting out." 

"Shake hands on it, Davis," says Short, getting to his feet. 
"A team of horses wouldn't have dragged me out first, if you 
hadn't said that about the rafts." 

"Wait a bit," says I, "till I speak to Mr. Kitten." 

I crawled back into the room, taking care to keep out of the 
way of the stones in the middle of it, and asked Mr. Kitten how 
long it would be before the drugged cakes acted on the men out- 
side who had eaten them? He said we ought to wait another 
quarter of an hour, to make quite sure. At the same time, 
Mr. Macey whispered in my ear to let him pass over the Pirate 
Captain's body, alone with the dangerous man of our company — 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 179 

Serjeant Drooce. "I know how to deal with mad people," says 
he. "I have persuaded the Serjeant that if he is quiet, and if he 
steps carefully, I can help him to escape from Tom Packer, whom 
he is beginning to look on as his keeper. He has been as stealthy 
and quiet as a cat ever since — and I will answer for him till we 
get to the river side." 

What a relief it was to hear that ! I was turning round to get 
back to Short, when a hand touched me lightly. 

"I have heard you talking," whispered Miss Maryon; "and I 
will prepare all in my room for the risk we must now run. Robert, 
tlie ship's boy, whom the children are so fond of, shall help us to 
persuade them, once more, that we are going -to play a game. If 
you can get one of the torches from the tent, and pass it in here, 
it may prevent some of us from stumbling. Don't be afraid of the 
women and children, Davis. They shall not endanger the brave 
men who are saving them." 

I left her at once to get the torch. The Pirate Captain was 
still fast asleep as I stole on tiptoe, into the hall, and took it 
from the tent. When I returned, and gave it to Miss Maryon, 
her sister's little deaf-and-dumb boy saw me, and, slipping between 
us, caught tight hold of one of my hands. Having been used to 
riding on my shoulders for so many days, he had taken a fancy 
to me; and, when I tried to put him away, he only clung the 
tighter, and began to murmur in his helpless dumb way. Slight 
as the noise was which the poor little fellow could make, we all 
dreaded it. His mother wrung her hands in despair when she 
heard him ; and Mr. Fisher whispered to me for Heaven's sake to 
quiet the child, and humour him at any cost. I immediately took 
him up in my arms, and went back to Short. 

"Sling him on my back," says I, "as you slung the little girl 
on your own the first day of the march. I want both my hands, 
and the child won't be quiet away from me." 

Short did as I asked him in two minutes. As soon as he had 
finished, Mr. Macey passed the word on to me, that the quarter 
of an hour was up ; that it was time to try the experiment with 
Drooce; and that it was necessary for us all to humour him by 
feigning sleep. We obeyed. Looking out of the corner of my 
eye, I saw Mr. Macey take the mad Serjeant's arm, point round 
to us all, and then lead him out. Holding tight by Mr. Macey, 
Drooce stepped as lightly as a woman, with as bright and wicked 
a look of cunning as ever I saw in any human eyes. They crossed 
the hall — Mr. Macey pointed to the Pirate Captain, and whis- 
pered, " Hush ! " — the Serjeant imitated the action and repeated 
the word — then the two stepped over his body (Drooce cautiously 



180 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

raising his feet the highest), and disappeared through the portico. 
We waited to hear if there was any noise or confusion. Not a 
sound. 

I got up, and Short handed me his jacket for the gag. The 
child, having been startled from his sleep by the light of the torch, 
when I brought it in, had fallen off again, already, on my shoulder. 
"Now for it," says I, and stole out into the hall. 

I stopped at the tent, went in, and took the first knife I could 
find there. With the weapon between my teeth, with the little 
innocent asleep on my shoulder, with the jacket held ready in both 
hands, I kneeled down on one knee at the Pirate Captain's head, 
and fixed my eyes steadily on his ugly sleeping face. 

The sailors came out first, with their shoes in their hands. No 
sound of footsteps from any one of them. No movement in the 
ugly face as they passed over it. 

The women and children were ready next. Robert, the ship's 
boy, lifted the children over : most of them holding their little 
hands over their mouths to keep from laughing — so well had 
Robert persuaded them that we were only playing a game. The 
women passed next, all as light as air ; after them, in obedience to 
a sign from me, my comrades of the Marines, holding their shoes 
in their hands, as the sailors had done before them. So far, not a 
word had been spoken, not a mistake had been made — so far, 
not a change of any sort had passed over the Pirate Captain's 
face. 

There were left now in the hall, besides myself and the child on 
my back, only Mr. Fisher and Mr. Pordage. Mr. Pordage ! Up 
to that moment, in the risk and excitement of the time, I had not 
once thought of him. 

I was forced to think of him now, though ; and with anything 
but a friendly feeling. 

At the sight of the Pirate Captain, asleep across the way out, 
the unfortunate, mischievous old simpleton tossed up his head, and 
folded his arms, and was on the point of breaking out loud into a 
spoken document of some kind, when Mr. Fisher wisely and quickly 
clapped a hand over his mouth. 

"Government despatches outside," whispers Mr. Fisher, in an 
agony. "Secret service. Forty-nine reports from headquarters, 
all waiting for you half a mile ofi". I'll show you the way, sir. 
Don't wake that man there, who is asleep : he must know nothing 
about it - — he represents the Public." 

Mr. Pordage suddenly looked very knowing and hugely satisfied 
with himself. He followed Mr. Fisher to within a foot of the Pirate 
Captain's body — then stopped short. 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 181 

" How many reports ? " he asked, very anxiously. 

"Forty-nine," said Mr. Fisher. "Come along, sir, — and step 
clean over the Public, whatever you do." 

Mr. Pordage instantly stepped over, as jauntily as if he was 
going to dance. At the moment of his crossing, a hanging rag of 
his cursed, useless, unfortunate, limp Diplomatic coat touched the 
Pirate Captain's forehead, and woke him. 

I drew back softly, with the child still asleep on my shoulder, 
into the black shadow of the wall behind me. At the instant when 
the Pirate Captain awoke, I had been looking at Mr. Pordage, and 
had consequently lost the chance of applying the gag to his mouth 
suddenly, at the right time. 

On rousing up, he turned his face inwards, towards the prisoners' 
room. If he had turned it outwards, he must to a dead certainty 
have seen the tail of Mr. Pordage's coat, disappearing in the 
portico. 

Though he was awake enough to move, he was not awake enough 
to have the full possession of his sharp senses. The drowsiness 
of his sleep still hung about him. He yawned, stretched himself, 
spat wearily, sat up, spat again, got on his legs, and stood up, 
within three feet of the shadow in which I was hiding behind 
him. 

I forgot the knife in my teeth, — I declare solemnly, in the 
frightful suspense of that moment, I forgot it — and doubled my 
fist as if I was an unarmed man, with the purpose of stunning 
him by a blow on the head if he came any nearer. I suppose I 
waited, with my fist clenched, nearly a minute, while he waited, 
yawning and spitting. At the end of that time, he made for his 
tent, and I heard him (with what thankfulness no words can tell !) 
roll himself down, with another yawn, on his bed inside. 

I waited — in the interest of us all — to make quite sure, 
before I left, that he was asleep again. In what I reckoned as 
about five minutes' time, I heard him snoring, and felt free to take 
myself and my little sleeping comrade out of the prison, at last. 

The drugged guards in the portico were sitting together, dead 
asleep, with their backs against the wall. The third man was ly- 
ing flat, on the landing of the steps. Their arms and ammunition 
were gone : wisely taken by our men — to defend us, if we were 
meddled with before we escaped, and to kill food for us when we 
committed ourselves to the river. 

At the bottom of the steps I was startled by seeing two women 
standing together. They were Mrs. Macey and Miss Maryon : the 
first, waiting to see her child safe ; the second (God bless her for 
it !) waiting to see me safe. 



182 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

In a quarter of an hour we were by the river-side, and saw the 
work bravely begun ; the sailors and the Marines under their orders, 
labouring at the rafts in the shallow water by the bank ; Mr. 
Macey and Mr. Fisher rolling down fresh timber as it was wanted ; / 
the women cutting the vines, creepers, and withies for the lashings. / 
We brought with us three more pair of hands to help ; and all 
worked with such a will, that, in four hours and twenty minutes, 
by Mr. Macey's watch, the rafts, though not finished as they ought 
to have been, were still strong enough to float us away. 

Short, another seaman, and the ship's boy, got aboard the first 
raft, carrying with them poles and spare timber. Miss Maryon, 
Mrs. Fisher and her husband, Mrs. Macey and her husband and \ 
three children, Mr, and Mrs. Pordage, Mr. Kitten, myself, and ' 
women and children besides, to make up eighteen, were the pas- 
sengers on the leading raft. The second raft, under the guidance 
of the two other sailors, held Serjeant Drooce (gagged, for he now 
threatened to be noisy again), Tom Packer, the two Marines, 
Mrs. Belltott, and the rest of the women and children. We all 
got on board silently and quickly, with a fine moonlight over our 
heads, and without accidents or delays of any kind. 

It was a good half-hour before the time would come for the 
change of guard at the prison, when the lashings which tied us to 
the bank were cast off", and we floated away, a company of free 
people, on the current of an unknown river. 



Chapter III. 

THE RAFTS ON THE RIVER. 

We contrived to keep afloat all night, and, the stream running 
strong with us, to glide a long way down the river. But, we found 
the night to be a dangerous time for such navigation, on account of 
the eddies and rapids, and it was therefore settled next day that in 
future we would bring-to at sunset and encamp on the shore. As 
we knew of no boats that the pirates possessed, up at the Prison 
in the Woods, we settled always to encamp on the opposite side of 
the stream, so as to have the breadth of the river between our sleep 
and them. Our opinion was, that if they were acquainted with any 
near way by land to the mouth of this river, they would come up it 
in force, and retake us or kill us, according as they could ; but, that 
if that was not the case, and if the river ran by none of their secret 
stations, we might escape. 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 183 

When I say we settled this or that, I do not mean that we 
planned anytliing with any confidence as to what might happen an 
hour hence. So much had happened in one night, and such great 
changes had been violently and suddenly made in the fortunes of 
many among us, that we had got better used to uncertainty, in a 
little while, than I dare say most people do in the course of their 
lives. 

The difiiculties w^e soon got into, through the off-settings and 
point-currents of the stream, made the likelihood of our being 
drowned, alone — to say nothing of our being retaken — as broad 
and plain as the sun at noon-day to all of us. But, we all worked 
hard at managing the rafts, under the direction of the seamen (of 
our own skill, I think we never could have prevented them from 
oversetting), and we also worked hard at making good the defects 
in their first hasty construction — which the water soon found out. 
While we humbly resigned ourselves to going down, if it was the 
will of Our Father that was in Heaven, we humbly made up our 
minds, that we would all do the best that was in us. 

And so we held on, gliding with the stream. It drove us to this 
bank, and it drove us to that bank, and it turned us, and whirled 
us ; but yet it carried us on. Sometimes much too slowly, some- 
times much too fast, but yet it carried us on. 

My little deaf-and-dumb boy slumbered a good deal now, and 
that was the case with all the children. They caused very little 
trouble to any one. They seemed, in my eyes, to get more like 
one another, not only in quiet manner, but in the face, too. The 
motion of the raft was usually so much the same, the scene was 
usually so much the same, the sound of the soft wash and ripple 
of the water was usually so much the same, that they were made 
drowsy, as they might have been by the constant playing of one 
tune. Even on the grown people, who w^orked hard and felt 
anxiety, the same things produced something of the same eff'ect. 
Every day was so like the other, that I soon lost count of the 
days, myself, and had to ask Miss Maryon, for instance, whether 
this was the third or fourth 1 Miss Maryon had a pocket-book and 
pencil, and she kept the log ; that is to say, she entered up a clear 
little journal of the time, and of the distances our seamen thought 
we had made, each night. 

So, as I say, we kept afloat and glided on. All day long, and 
every day, the water, and the woods, and sky ; all day long, and 
every day, the constant watching of both sides of the river, and far 
ahead at every bold turn and sweep it made, for any signs of 
pirate-boats, or pirate-dwellings. So, as I say, we kept afloat and 
glided on. The days melting themselves together to that degree, 



184 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

that I could hardly believe my ears when I asked " How many, 
now, miss?" and she answered, ''Seven." 

To be sure, poor Mr. Pordage had, by about now, got his Diplo- 
matic coat into such a state as never was seen. What with the 
mud of the river, what with the water of the river, what with the 
sun, and the dews, and the tearing boughs, and the thickets, it I 
hung about him in discoloured shreds like a mop. The sun had 
touched him a bit. He had taken to always polishing one partic- 
ular button, which just held on to his left wrist, and to always 
calling for stationery. I suppose that man called for pens, ink, 
and paper, tape, and sealing-wax, upwards of one thousand times 
in four-and-twenty hours. He had an idea that we should never 
get out of that river unless we were written out of it in a formal 
Memorandum ; and the more we laboured at navigating the rafts, 
the more he ordered us not to touch them at our peril, and the 
more he sat and roared for stationery. 

Mrs. Pordage, similarly, persisted in wearing her night-cap. I 
doubt if any one but ourselves who had seen the progress of that 
article of dress, could by this time have told wliat it was meant 
for. It had got so limp and ragged that she couldn't see out of 
her eyes for it. It was so dirty, that whether it was vegetable 
matter out of a swamp, or weeds out of the river, or an old 
porter's-knot from England, I don't think any new spectator could 
have said. Yet, this unfortunate old woman had a notion that it 
was not only vastly genteel, but that it was the correct thing 
as to propriety. And she really did carry herself over the other 
ladies who had no night-caps, and who were forced to tie up their 
hair how they could, in a superior manner that was perfectly 
amazing. 

I don't know what she looked like, sitting in that blessed night- 
cap, on a log of wood, outside the hut or cabin upon our raft. 
She would have rather resembled a fortune-teller in one of the 
picture-books that used to be in the shop windows in my boyhood, 
except for her stateliness. But, Lord bless my heart, the dignity 
with which she sat and moped, with her head in that bundle of 
tatters, was like nothing else in the world ! She was not on 
speaking terms with more than three of the ladies. Some of them 
had, what she called, "taken precedence" of her — in getting into, 
or out of, that miserable little shelter ! — and others had not called 
to pay their respects, or something of that kind. So, there she 
sat, in her own state and ceremony, wiiile her husband sat on the 
same log of wood, ordering us one and all to let the raft go to the 
bottom, and to bring him stationery. 

What with this noise on the part of Mr. Commissioner Pordage, 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 185 

and what with the cries of Serjeant Drooce on the raft astern 
(which were sometimes more than Tom Packer could silence), we 
often made our slow way down the river, anything but quietly. 
Yet, that it was of great importance that no ears should be able to 
hear us from the woods on the banks, could not be doubted. We were 
looked for, to a certainty, and we might be retaken at any moment. 
It was an anxious time ; it was, indeed, indeed, an anxious time. 

On the seventh night of our voyage on the rafts, we made fast, 
as usual, on the opposite side of the river to that from which we 
had started, in as dark a place as we could pick out. Our little 
encampment was soon made, and supper was eaten, and the children 
fell asleep. The watch was set, and everything made orderly for 
the night. Such a starlight night, with such blue in the sky, 
and such black in the places of heavy shade on the banks of the 
great stream ! 

Those two ladies, Miss Maryon and Mrs. Fisher, had always 
kept near me since the night of the attack. Mr. Fisher, who was 
untiring in the work of our raft, had said to me : 

" My dear little childless wife has grown so attached to you, 
Davis, and you are such a gentle fellow, as well as such a de- 
termined one; " our party had adopted that last expression from the 
one-eyed English pirate, and I repeat what Mr. Fisher said, only 
because he said it ; " that it takes a load off my mind to leave her 
in your charge." 

I said to him : " Your lady is in far better charge than mine, sir, 
having Miss Maryon to take care of her ; but, you may rely upon 
it, that I will guard them both — faithful and true." 

Says he : "I do rely upon it, Davis, and I heartily wish all the 
silver on our old Island was yours." 

That seventh starlight night, as I have said, we made our camp, 
and got our supper, and set our watch, and the children fell asleep. 
It was solemn and beautiful in those wild and solitary parts, to 
see them, every night before they lay down, kneeling under the 
bright sky, saying their little prayers at women's laps. At that 
time we men all uncovered, and mostly kept at a distance. When 
the innocent creatures rose up, we murmured "Amen ! " all to- 
gether. For, though we had not heard what they said, we knew 
it must be good for us. 

At that time, too, as was only natural, those poor mothers in 
our company whose children had been killed, shed many tears. 
I thought the sight seemed to console them while it made them 
cry ; but, whether I was right or wrong in that, they wept very 
much. On this seventh night, Mrs. Fisher had cried for her lost 
darling until she cried herself asleep. She was lying on a little 



186 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

couch of leaves and such-like (I made the best little couch I could, 
for them every night), and Miss Maryou had covered her, and sat 
by her, holding her hand. The stars looked down upon them. As 
for me, I guarded them. 

" Davis ! " says Miss Maryon. (I am not going to say what a 
voice she had. I couldn't if I tried.) 

" I am here, miss." 

"The river sounds as if it were swollen to-night." 

"We all think, miss, that we are coming near the sea." 

" Do you believe, now, we shall escape 1 " 

"I do now, miss, really believe it." I had always said I did; 
but, I had in my own mind been doubtful. 

" How glad you will be, my good Davis, to see England 
again ! " 

I have another confession to make that will appear singular. 
When she said these words, something rose in my throat ; and 
the stars I looked away at, seemed to break into sparkles that 
fell down on my face and burnt it. 

"England is not much to me, miss, except as a name." 

" Oh ! So true an Englishman should not say that ! — Are 
you not well to-night, Davis?" Very kindly, and with a quick 
change. 

" Quite well, miss." 

" Are you sure ? Your voice sounds altered in my hearing." 

"No, miss, I am a stronger man than ever. But England is 
nothing to me." 

Miss Maryon sat silent for so long a while, that I believed she 
had done speaking to me for one time. However, she had not ; 
for by-and-bye she said in a distinct, clear tone : 

" No, good friend ; you must not say, that England is nothing 
to you. It is to be much to you, yet — everything to you. You 
have to take back to England the good name you have earned here, 
and the gratitude and attachment and respect you have won here ; 
and you have to make some good English girl very happy and 
proud, by marrying her ; and I shall one day see her, I hope, 
and make her happier and prouder still, by telling her what noble 
services her husband's were in South America, and what a noble 
friend he was to me there." 

Though she spoke these kind words in a cheering manner, she 
spoke them compassionately. I said nothing. It will appear to 
be another strange confession, that I paced to and fro, within call, 
all that night, a most unhappy man reproaching myself all the 
night long. " You are as ignorant as any man alive ; you are as 
obscure as any man alive ; you are as poor as any man alive ; you 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 187 

are no better than the mud under your foot." That was the way 
in which I went on against myself until the morning. 

With the day, came the day's labour. What I should have done 
without the labour, I don't know. We were afloat again at the 
usual hour, and were again making our way down the river. It 
was broader, and clearer of obstructions than it had been, and it 
seemed to flow faster. This was one of Drooce's quiet days ; Mr. 
Pordage, besides being sulky, had almost lost his voice ; and we 
made good way, and with little noise. 

There was always a seaman forward on the raft, keeping a bright 
look-out. Suddenly, in the full heat of the day, when the children 
were slumbering, and the very trees and reeds appeared to be 
slumbering, this man — it was Short — holds up his hand, and 
cries with great caution : 

" Avast ! Voices ahead ! " 

We held on against the stream as soon as we could bring her up, 
and the other raft followed suit. At first, Mr. Macey, Mr. Fisher, 
and myself, could hear nothing ; though both the seamen aboard 
of us agreed that they could hear voices and oars. After a little 
pause, however, we united in thinking that we coidd hear the 
sound of voices, and the dip of oars. But, you can hear a long 
way in those countries, and there was a bend of the river before 
us, and nothing was to be seen except such waters and such banks 
as we were now in the eighth day (and might, for the matter of 
our feelings have been in the eightieth), of having seen with 
anxious eyes. 

It was soon decided to put a man ashore who should creep 
through the wood, see what was coming, and warn the rafts. The 
rafts in the meantime to keep the middle of the stream. The man 
to be put ashore, and not to swim ashore, as the first thing could 
be more quickly done than the second. The raft conveying him, to 
get back into mid-stream, and to hold on along with the other, as 
well as it could, until signalled by the man. In case of danger, 
the man to shift for himself until it should be safe to take him 
aboard again. I volunteered to be the man. 

We knew that the voices and oars must come up slowly against 
the stream ; and our seamen knew, by the set of the stream, under 
which bank they would come. I was put ashore accordingly. The 
raft got off well, and I broke into the wood. 

Steaming hot it was, and a tearing place to get through. So 
much the better for me, since it was something to contend against 
and do. I cut off the bend in the river, at a great saving of space, 
came to the water's edge again, and hid myself, and waited. I could 
now hear the dip of the oars very distinctly ; the voices had ceased. 



188 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

The sound came on in a regular tune, and as I lay liiddcn, I 
fjincied tlie tune so j)layed to be, " Chris'en — George — King ! 
Ohris'en — George — King ! Chris'en — George — King ! " over and 
over again, always the same, with the pauses always at the same 
places. I had likewise time to make up my mind that if these were 
the pirates, I could and would (barring my being shot), swim oft" to 
my raft, in spite of my wound, tiie moment I had given the alarm, 
and hold my old post by Miss Maryon. 

"Chris'en — George — King! Chris'en — George — King! 
Chris'en — George — King!" coming up, now, very near. 

I took a look at the branches about me, to see where a shower 
of bullets would be most likely to do me least hurt ; and I took a 
look back at the track I had made in forcing my way in ; and now 
I was wholly prepared and fully ready for them. 

"Chris'en — George — King! Chris'en — George — King ! 
Chris'en — George — King ! " Here they were ! 

Who were they? Tlie barbarous pirates, scum of all nations 
headcil by such men as tlie hideous little Portuguese monkey, and 
the one-eyed English convict with the gash across his face, that ought 
to have gashed his wicked head oft'? The worst men in the world 
picked out from the worst, to do the cruellest anil most atrocious 
deeds that ever stained it? The howling, nuu'dering, black-flag 
waving, mad, and drunken crowd of devils that had overcome us by 
numbers and by treachery ? No. These were English men in Eng- 
lish boots — good blue-jackets and red-coats — Marines that I knew 
myself, and sailors tiiat knew our seamen ! At the helm of the 
first boat, Cajitain Carton, eager and steady. At the helm of the 
second boat. Captain Maryon, brave and bold. At the helm of 
the third boat, an old seaman, with determination carved into his 
watchful face, like the figure-head of a ship. Every man doubly 
and trebly armed from head to foot. Every man lying-to at his 
work, with a will that had all his heart and soul in it. Every man 
looking out for any trace of friend or enemy, and burning to be the 
first to do good, or avenge evil. Every man with his face on fire 
when he saw me, his countryman who had been taken prisoner, and 
hailed me with a cheer, as Captain Carton's boat ran in and took 
me on board, 

I reported, "All escaped, sir! All well, all safe, all here!" 

God bless me — and God bless them — what a cheer ! It turned 
me weak, as I was passed on from hand to hand to the stern of the 
boat : every hand patting me or grasping me in some way or other, 
in the moment of my going by. 

"Hold up, my brave fellow," sa^'^s Captain Carton, clapping 
me on the shoulder like a friend, and giving me a flask. "Put 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 189 

\.)ur lips to that, and they'll be red again. Now, boys, give 
way!" 

The banks flew by us, as if the mightiest stream that ever ran 
M :is with us ; and so it was, I am sure, meaning the stream of those 
TiuMi's^, ardour and spirit. The banks flew by us, and wc came in 
siuht of the rafts — the banks flew by us, and we came alongside of 
i\\c rafts — the banks stopped; and there was a tumult of laugliing 
untl crying and kissing and shaking of hands, and cati^hing up of 
children and setting of them down again, and a wild hurry of thank- 
fulness and joy that melted every one and softened all hearts. 

1 had taken notice, in Captain (Jarton's boat, that there was a 
cuiious and quite new sort of fitting on board. It was a kind of 
a little bower made of flowers, and it was set up behind the 
('ai)tain, and betwixt liim and the rudder. I'^ot only was this 
arbor, so to call it, neatly made of flowers, but it was ornamented 
in a singular way. Some of the men had taken the ribbons and 
Itiu'kles ofl" their hats, and hung them among the flowers ; otliers, 
liad made festoons and streamers of their handkerchiefs, and hung 
thcin there; otliers, had intermixed such trifles as bits of glass 
and shining fragments of lockets and tobacco-boxes, witii the 
llowcrs ; so that altogether it was a very bright and lively object 
ii! tlie sunshine. But, why there, or what for, I did not under- 
stand. 

Now, as soon as the first bewilderment was over. Captain 
( 'arton gave the order to land for the present. But, this boat of 
Ills, with two hands left in her, immediately put off again when 
the men were out of her, and kept oft", some yards from the shore. 
As she floated there, with the two hands gently backing water to 
kicp her from going down the stream, this pretty little arbor 
attracted many eyes. None of the boat's crew, however, had 
anything to say about it, except that it was the Captain's fancy. 

The Captain, with the women and children clustering round liim, 
and the men of all ranks grouped outside them, and all listening, 
stood telling how the Expedition, deceived by its bad intelligence, 
had chased the light pirate boats all that fatal night, and had 
still followed in their wake next day, and had never suspected 
until many hours too late that the great pirate body had drawn 
off in the darkness when the chace began, and shot over to the 
Island. He stood telling how the Expedition, supposing the 
whole array of armed boats to be ahead of it, got tempted into 
shallows and went aground ; but, not without having its revenge 
upon the two decoy-boats, both of which it had come up with, 
overland, and sent to the bottom with all on board. He stood tell- 
ing how the Expedition, fearing then that the case stood as it did. 



190 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

got afloat again, by great exertion, after the loss of four more tides, » 
and returned to the Island, where they found the sloop scuttled 
and the treasure gone. He stood telling how my officer. Lieu- 
tenant Linderwood, was left upon the Island, with as strong a 
force as could be got together hurriedly from the mainland, and 
how the three boats we saw before us were manned and armed 
and had come away, exploring the coast and inlets, in search of 
any tidings of us. He stood telling all this, with his face to the 
river ; and, as he stood telling it, the little arbor of flowers floated 
in the sunshine before all the faces there. 

Leaning on Captain Carton's shoulder, between him and Miss' 
Maryon, was Mrs. Fisher, her head drooping on her arm. She 
asked him, without raising it, when he had told so much, whether 
he had found her mother 1 

"Be comforted! She lies," said the Captain, gently, "under 
the cocoa-nut trees on the beach." 

"And my child. Captain Carton, did you find my child, too? 
Does my darling rest with my mother 1 " 

"No. Your pretty child sleeps," said the Captain, "under a 
shade of flowers." 

His voice shook ; but, there was something in it that struck all 
the hearers. At that moment, there sprang from the arbor in his 
boat, a little creature, clapping her hands and stretching out her 
arms, and crying, " Dear papa ! Dear mamma ! I am not killed. 
I am saved. I am coming to kiss you. Take me to them, take 
me to them, good, kind sailors ! " 

Nobody who saw that scene has ever forgotten it, I am sure, or 
ever will forget it. The child had kept quite still, where her brave 
grandmamma had put her (first whispering in her ear, " Wliatever 
happens to me, do not stir, my dear ! "), and had remained quiet 
until the Fort was deserted ; she had then crept out of the trench, 
and gone into her mother's house ; and there, alone on the solitary 
Island, in her mother's room, and asleep on her mother's bed, the 
Captain had found her. Nothing could induce her to be parted 
from him after he took her up in his arms, and he had brought her 
away with him, and the men had made the bower for her. To see 
those men now, was a sight. The joy of the women was beautiful ; 
the joy of those women who had lost their own children, was quite 
sacred and divine ; but the ecstasies of Captain Carton's boat's crew, 
when their pet was restored to her parents, were wonderful for the 
tenderness they showed in the midst of roughness. As the Captain 
stood with the child in his arms, and the child's own little arms 
now clinging round his neck, now round her father's, now round 
her mother's, now round some one who pressed up to kiss her, the 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 191 

boat's crew shook hands with one another, waved then- hats over 
their heads, laughed, sang, cried, danced — and all among them- 
selves, without wanting to interfere with anybody — in a manner 
never to be represented. At last, I saw the coxswain and another, 
two very hard-faced men with grizzled heads who had been the 
heartiest of the hearty all along, close with one another, get each 
of them the other's head under his arm, and pummel away at it 
with his fist as hard as he could, in his excess of joy. 

When we had well rested and refreshed ourselves — and very 
glad we were to have some of the heartening things to eat and 
drink that had come up in the boats — we recommenced our 
voyage down the river : rafts, and boats, and all. I said to 
myself, it was a very diflferent kind of voyage-now, from what it 
had been ; and I fell into my proper place and station among my 
fellow-soldiers. 

But, when we halted for the night, I found that Miss Maryon 
had spoken to Captain Carton concerning me. For, the Captain 
came straight up to me, and says he, " My brave fellow, you have 
been Miss Maryon's body-guard all along, and you shall remain so. 
Nobody shall supersede you in the distinction and pleasure of pro- 
tecting that young lady." I thanked his honour in the fittest 
words I could find, and that night I was placed on my old post 
of watching the place where she slept. More than once in the 
night, I saw Captain Carton come out into the air, and stroll about 
there, to see that all was well. I have now this other singular 
confession to make, that I saw him with a heavy heart. Yes ; 
I saw him with a heavy, heavy heart. 

In the day-time, I had the like post in Captain Carton's boat. I 
had a special station of my own, behind Miss Maryon, and no hands 
but hers ever touched my wound. (It has been healed these many 
long years ; but, no other hands have ever touched it.) Mr. Por- 
dage was kept tolerably quiet now, with pen and ink, and began 
to pick up his senses a little. Seated in the second boat, he made 
documents with Mr. Kitten, pretty well all day ; and he generally 
handed in a Protest about something whenever we stopped. The 
Captain, however, made so very light of these papers that it grew 
into a saying among the men, when one of them wanted a match 
for his pipe, "Hand us over a Protest, Jack!" As to Mrs. 
Pordage, she still wore the night-cap, and she now had cut all the 
ladies on account of her not having been formally and separately 
rescued by Captain Carton before anybody else. The end of Mr. 
Pordage, to bring to an end all I know about him, was, that he got 
great compliments at home for his conduct on these trying occasions, 
and that he died of yellow jaundice, a Governor and a K.C.B. 



192 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

Serjeant Drooce had fallen from a high fever into a low one. 
Tom Packer — the only man who could have pulled the Serjeant 
through it — kept hospital aboard the old raft, and Mrs. Belltott, 
as brisk as ever again (but the spirit of that little woman, when 
things tried it, was not equal to appearances), was head-nurse 
under his directions. Before we got down to the Mosquito coast, 
the joke had been made by one of our men, that we should see 
her gazetted Mrs. Tom Packer, vice Belltott exchanged. 

When we reached the coast, we got native boats as substitutes 
for the rafts : and we rowed along under the land; and in that 
beautiful climate, and upon that beautiful water, the blooming 
days were like enchantment. Ah ! They were running away, 
faster than any sea or river, and there was no tide to bring them 
back. We were coming very near the settlement where the 
people of Silver-Store were to be left, and from which we Marines 
were under orders to return to Belize. 

Captain Carton had, in the boat by him, a curious long-bar- 
relled Spanish gun, and he had said to Miss Mary on one day 
that it was the best of guns, and had turned his head to me, and 
said: 

" Gill Davis, load her fresh with a couple of slugs, against a 
chance of showing how good she is." 

So, I had discharged the gun over the sea, and had loaded her, 
according to orders, and there it had lain at the Captain's feet, 
convenient to the Captain's hand. 

The last day but one of our journey was an uncommonly hot 
day. We started very early; but, there was no cool air on the 
sea as the day got on, and by noon the heat was really hard to 
bear, considering that there were women and children to bear it. 
Now, we happened to open, just at that time, a very pleasant 
little cove or bay, where there was a deep shade from a great 
growth of trees. Now, the Captain, therefore, made the signal to 
the other boats to follow him in and lie by a while. 

The men who were off duty went ashore, and lay down, but 
were ordered, for caution's sake, not to stray, and to keep within 
view. The others rested on their oars and dozed. Awnings had 
been made of one thing and another, in all the boats, and the 
passengers found it cooler to be under them in the shade, when 
there was room enough, than to be in the thick woods. So, the 
passengers were all afloat, and mostly sleeping. I kept my post 
behind Miss Maryon, and she was on Captain Carton's right in the 
boat, and Mrs. Fisher sat on her right again. The Captain had 
Mrs. Fisher's daughter on his knee. He and the two ladies were 
talking about the pirates, and were talking softly ; partly, because 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 193 

people do talk softly under such indolent circumstances, and partly 
because the little girl had gone off asleep. 

I think I have before given it out for my Lady to write down, 
that Captain Carton had a fine bright eye of his own. All at 

once, he darted me a side look, as much as to say, "Steady 

don't take on — I see something ! " — and gave the child into her 
mother's arms. That eye of his was so easy to understand, that I 
obeyed it by not so much as looking either to the right or to the left 
out of a corner of my own, or changing my attitude the least trifle. 
The Captain went on talking in the same mild and easy way ; but 
began — with his arms resting across his knees, and his head a 
little hanging forward, as if tlie heat were rather too much for him 
— began to play with the Spanish gun. 

" They had laid their plans, you see," says the Captain, taking 
up the Spanish gun across his knees, and looking, lazily, at the in- 
laying on the stock, " with a great deal of art ; and the corrupt or 
blundering local authorities were so easily deceived ; " he ran his left 
hand idly along the barrel, but I saw, with my breath held, that 
i he covered the action of cocking the gun with his right — " so easily 
deceived, that they summoned us out to come into the trap. But 

my intention as to future operations " In a flash the Spanish 

gun was at his bright eye, and he fired. 

All started up ; innumerable echoes repeated the sound of the 

cUscharge ; a cloud of bright-coloured birds flew out of the woods 

j screaming ; a handful of leaves were scattered in the place where 

' the shot had struck ; a crackling of branches was heard ; and some 

lithe but heavy creature sprang into the air, and fell forward, head 

down, over the muddy bank. 

" What is it ? " cries Captain Mary on from his boat. All silent 
then, but the echoes rolling away. 

"It is a Traitor and a Spy," said Captain Carton, handing me 
the gun to load again. " And I think the other name of the animal 
is Christian George King ! " 

Shot through the heart. Some of the people ran round to the 
spot, and drew him out, with the slime and wet trickling down his 
face ; but, his face itself would never stir any more to the end of 
time. 

" Leave him hanging to that tree," cried Captain Carton ; his 
boat's crew giving way, and he leaping ashore. " But first into 
this wood, every man in his place. And boats ! Out of gunshot !" 
It was a quick change, well meant and well made, though it 
ended in disappointment. No pirates were there ; no one but the 
Spy was found. It was supposed that the pirates, unable to retake 
us, and expecting a great attack upon them, to be the consequence 



194 THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 

of our escape, had made from the ruins in the Forest, taken to their 
ship along with the Treasure, and left the Spy to pick up what in- 
telligence he could. In the evening we went away, and he was left 
hanging to the tree, all alone, with the red sun making a kind of a 
dead sunset on his black face. 

Next day, we gained the settlement on the Mosquito coast for 
which we were bound. Having stayed there to refresh, seven days, 
and having been much commended, and highly spoken of, and finely 
entertained, we Marines stood under orders to march from the Town- 
Gate (it was neither much of a town nor much of a gate), at five 
in the morning. 

My officer had joined us before then. When we turned out at 
the gate, all the people were there ; in the front of them all those 
who had been our fellow-prisoners, and all the seamen, 

"Davis," says Lieutenant Linderwood. "Stand out, my friend ! " 

I stood out from the ranks, and Miss Maryon and Captain Carton 
came up to mc. 

"Dear Davis," says Miss Maryon, while the tears fell fast down 
her face, "your grateful friends, in most unwillingly taking leave 
of you, ask the favour that, while you bear away with you their 
affectionate remembrance which nothing can ever impair, you will 
also take this purse of money — far more valuable to you, we all 
know, for the deep attachment and thankfulness with which it is 
off'ered, than for its own contents, though Ave hope those may prove 
useful to you, too, in after life." 

I got out, in answer, that I thankfully accepted the attachment 
and affection, but not the money. Captain Carton looked at me 
very attentively, and stepped back, and moved away. I made him 
my bow as he stepped back, to thank him for being so delicate. 

" No, miss," said I, " I think it would break my heart to accept 
the money. But, if you could condescend to give to a man so 
ignorant and common as myself, any little thing you have worn 
— such as a bit of ribbon " 

She took a ring from her finger, and put it in my hand. And 
she rested her hand in mine, while she said these words : 

" The brave gentlemen of old — but not one of them was braver, 
or had a nobler nature than you — took such gifts from ladies, and 
did all their good actions for the givers' sakes. If you will do 
yours for mine, I shall think with pride that I continue to have 
some share in the life of a gallant and generous man." 

For the second time in my life, she kissed my hand. I made 
so bold, for the first time, as to kiss hers; and I tied the ring at 
my breast, and I fell back to my place. 

Then, the horse-litter went out at the gate, with Serjeant Drooce 



THE PERILS OF CERTAIN ENGLISH PRISONERS. 195 

in it ; and the horse-litter went out at the gate with Mrs. Belltott 
in it; and Lieutenant Linderwood gave the word of command, 
" Quick march ! " and, cheered and cried for, we went out of the 
gate too, marching along the level plain towards the serene blue 
sky as if we were marching straight to Heaven. 

When I have added here that the pirate scheme was blown to 
shivers, by the pirate-ship which had the Treasure on board being 
so vigorously attacked by one of His Majesty's cruisers, among the 
West India Keys, and being so swiftly boarded and carried, that 
nobody suspected anything about the scheme until three-fourths of 
the pirates were killed, and the other fourth were in irons and the 
Treasure was recovered ; I come to the last singular confession I 
have got to make. 

It is this. I well knew what an immense and hopeless distance 
there was between me and Miss Maryon ; I well knew that I was 
no fitter company for her than I was for the angels ; I well knew 
that she was as high above my reach as the sky over my head ; 
and yet I loved her. What put it in my low heart to be so daring, 
or whether such a thing ever happened before or since, as that a 
man so uninstructed and obscure as myself got his unhappy thoughts 
lifted up to such a height, while knowing very well how presumptuous 
and impossible to be realised they were, I am unable to say ; still, 
the suifering to me was just as great as if I had been a gentleman. 
I sujffered agony — agony. I suffered hard, and I suffered long. 
I thought of her last words to me, however, and I never disgraced 
them. If it had not been for those dear words, I think I should 
have lost myself in despair and recklessness. 

The ring will be found lying on my heart, of course, and will be 
laid with me wherever I am laid. I am getting on in years now, 
though I am able and hearty. I was recommended for promotion, 
and everything was done to reward me that could be done ; but, 
my total want of all learning stood in my way, and I found myself 
so completely out of the road to it, that I could not conquer any 
learning, though I tried. I was long in the service, and I respected 
it, and was respected in it, and the service is dear to me at this 
present hour. 

At this present hour, when I give this out to my Lady to be 
written down, all my old pain has softened away, and I am as 
happy as a man can be, at this present fine old country-house of 
Admiral Sir George Carton, Baronet. It was my Lady Carton who 
herself sought me out, over a great many miles of the wide world, 
and found me in Hospital wounded, and brought me here. It is 
my Lady Carton who writes down my words. My Lady was Miss 
Maryon. And now, that I conclude what I had to tell, I see my 



196 GOING INTO SOCIETY. 

Lady's honoured grey hair droop over her face, as she leans a little 
lower at her desk ; and I fervently thank her for being so tender 
as I see she is, towards the past pain and trouble of her poor, old, 
faithful, humble soldier. 



From "A House to Let," being the Extra Christinas Number of '^House- 
hold Words "for Christmas, 1858. 

GOING INTO SOCIETY. 

At one period of its reverses, the House fell into the occupation 
of a Showman. He was found registered as its occupier, on the 
parish books of the time when he rented the House, and there was 
therefore no need of any clue to his name. But, he himself was 
less easy to be found ; for, he had led a wandering life, and settled 
people had lost sight of him, and people who plumed themselves on 
being respectable were shy of admitting that they had ever known 
anything of him. At last, among the marsh lands near the river's 
level, that lie about Deptford and tlie neighbouring market-gardens, 
a Grizzled Personage in velveteen, with a face so cut up by varie- 
ties of weather that he looked as if he had been tattooed, was found 
smoking a pipe at the door of a wooden house on wheels. The 
wooden house was laid up in ordinary for the winter, near the 
mouth of a muddy creek ; and everything near it, the foggy river, 
the misty marshes, and the steaming market-gardens, smoked in com- 
pany with the grizzled man. In the midst of this smoking party, 
the funnel-chimney of the wooden house on wheels was not remiss, 
but took its pipe with the rest in a companionable manner. 

On being asked if it were he who had once rented the House to 
Let, Grizzled Velveteen looked surprised, and said yes. Then his 
name was Magsman 1 That was it, Toby Magsman — which law- 
fully christened Robert; but called in the line, from a infant, Toby. 
There was nothing agin Toby Magsman, he believed ? If there was 
suspicion of such — mention it ! 

There was no suspicion of such, he might rest assured. But, 
some inquiries were making about that House, and would he object 
to say why he left it ? 

Not at all ; why should he ? He left it, along of a Dwarf. 

Along of a Dwarf? 

Mr. Magsman repeated, deliberately and emphatically, Along of 
a Dwarf. 




GOING INTO SOCIETY, 



198 GOING INTO SOCIETY. 

Might it be compatible with Mr. Magsman's inclination and con- 
venience to enter, as a favour, into a few particulars ? 

Mr. Magsman entered into the following particulars. 

It was a long time ago, to begin with ; — afore lotteries and a deal 
more was done away with. Mr. Magsman was looking about for 
a good pitch, and he see that house, and he says to himself, " I'll 
have you, if you're to be had. If money '11 get you, I'll have you." 

The neighbours cut up rough, and made complaints ; but Mr. 
Magsman don't know what they ivould have had. It was a lovely 
thing. First of all, there was the canvass, representin the picter 
of the Giant, in Spanish trunks and a ruff, who was himself half 
the heighth of the house, and was run up with a line and pulley 
to a pole on the roof, so that his Ed was coeval with the parapet. 
Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the Albina 
lady, showing her white air to the Army and Navy in correct uni- 
form. Then, there was the canvass, representin the picter of the 
Wild Indian a scalpin a member of some foreign nation. Then, 
there was the canvass, representin the picter of a child of a British 
Planter, seized by two Boa Constrictors — not that ive never had 
no child, nor no Constrictors neither. Similarly, there was the 
canvass, representin the picter of the Wild Ass of the Prairies — 
not that we never had no wild asses, nor wouldn't have had 'em 
at a gift. Last, there was the canvass, representin the picter of 
the Dwarf, and like him too (considerin), with George the Fourth 
in such a state of astonishment at him as His Majesty couldn't 
with his utmost politeness and stoutness express. The front of 
the House was so covered with canvasses, that there wasn't a spark 
of daylight ever visible on that side. " Magsman's Amusements," 
fifteen foot long by two foot high, ran over the front door and par- 
lour winders. The passage was a Arbour of green baize and gar- 
denstuff. A barrel-organ performed there unceasing. And as to 
respectability, — if threepence an't respectable, what is 1 

But, the Dwarf is the principal article at present, and he was 
worth the money. He was wrote up as Major Tpschoffki, of 
THE Imperial Bulgraderian Brigade. Nobody couldn't pro- 
nounce the name, and it never was intended anybody should. The 
public always turned it, as a regular rule, into Chopski. In the line 
he was called Chops ; partly on that account, and partly because j 
his real name, if he ever had any real name (which was very dubi- 
ous), was Stakes. 

He was a un-common small man, he really was. Certainly noti 
so small as he was made out to be, but where is your Dwarf as is ? 
He was a most uncommon small man, with a most uncommon 
large Ed ; and what he had inside that Ed, nobody never knowed 



GOING INTO SOCIETY. 199 

but himself: even supposiii himself to have ever took stock of it, 
which it would have been a stiff job for even him to do. 

The kindest little man as never growed ! Spirited, but not 
proud. When he travelled with the Spotted Baby — though he 
knowed himself to be a nat'ral Dwarf, and knowed the Baby's 
spots to be put upon him artificial, he nursed that Baby like a 
mother. You never heerd him give a ill-name to a Giant. He 
did allow himself to break out into strong language respectin the 
Fat Lady from Norfolk ; but that was an affair of the 'art ; and 
when a man's 'art has been trifled with by a lady, and the prefer- 
ence giv to a Indian, he an't master of his actions. 

He was always in love, of course ; every human nat'ral phenom- 
enon is. And he was always in love with "a large woman ; / 
never knowed the Dwarf as could be got to love a small one. 
Which helps to keep 'em the Curiosities they are. 

One sing'ler idea he had in that Ed of his, which must have 
meant something, or it wouldn't have been there. It was always 
his opinion that he was entitled to property. He never would put 
his name to anything. He had been taught to write, by the young 
man without arms, who got his living with his toes (quite a writ- 
ing master he was, and taught scores in the line), but Chops would 
have starved to death, afore he'd have gained a bit of bread by put- 
ting his hand to a paper. This is the more curious to bear in mind, 
because he had no property, nor hope of property, except his house 
and a sarser. When I say his house, I mean the box, painted and 
got up outside like a reg'lar six-roomer, that he used to creep into, 
with a diamond ring (or quite as good to look at) on his forefinger, 
and ring a little bell out of what the Public believed to be the 
Drawing-room winder. And when I say a sarser, I mean a Chaney 
sarser in which he made a collection for himself at the end of every 
Entertainment. His cue for that, he took from me : " Ladies and 
gentlemen, the little man will now walk three times round the 
Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." When he said anything 
important, in private life, he mostly wound it up with this form 
of words, and they was generally the last thing he said to me at 
night afore he went to bed. 

He had what I consider a fine mind — a poetic mind. His 
ideas respectin his property never come upon him so strong as 
when he sat upon a barrel-organ and had the handle turned. 
Arter the wibration had run through him a little time, he would 
screech out, " Toby, I feel my property coming — grind aAvay ! 
I'm counting my guineas by thousands, Toby — grind away ! 
Toby, I shall be a man of fortun ! I feel the Mint a jingling in 
me, Toby, and I'm swelling out into the Bank of England ! " 



200 GOING INTO SOCIETY. 

Such is the influence of music on a poetic mind. Not that he 
was partial to any other music but a barrel-organ ; on the con- 
trairy, hated it. 

He had a kind of a everlasting grudge agin the Public : which 
is a thing you may notice in many phenomenons that get their 
living out of it. What riled him most in the nater of his occupa- 
tion was, that it kep him out of Society. He was continiwally 
saying, " Toby, my ambition is, to go into Society. The curse of 
my position towards the Public is, that it keeps me hout of Society. 
This don't signify to a low beast of a Indian ; he an't formed for 
Society. This don't signify to a Spotted Baby; he an't formed for 
Society. — I am." 

Nobody never could make out what Chops done witli his money. 
He had a good salary, down on the dmm every Saturday as the 
day come round, besides having the run of his teeth — and he was 
a Woodpecker to eat — but all Dwarfs are. The sarser was a 
little income, bringing him in so many halfpence that he'd carry 
'em for a week together, tied up in a pocket handkercher. And 
yet he never had money. And it couldn't be the Fat Lady from 
Norfolk, as was once supposed ; because it stands to reason that 
when you have a animosity towards a Indian, which makes you 
grind your teeth at him to his face, and which can hardly hold you 
from Goosing him audible when he's going through his War-Dance 
— it stands to reason you wouldn't under them circumstances 
deprive yourself, to support that Indian in the lap of luxuiy. 

Most unexpected, the mystery come out one day at Egham Races. 
The Public was shy of bein pulled in, and Chops was ringin his 
little bell out of his drawing-room winder, and was snarlin to me 
over his shoulder as he kneeled down with his legs out at the back- 
door — for he couldn't be shoved into his house without kneeling 
down, and the premises wouldn't accommodate his legs — was 
snarlin, " Here's a precious Public for you ; why the Devil don't 
they tumble up 1 " when a man in the crowd holds up a carrier- 
pigeon, and cries out, "If there's any person here as has got a 
ticket, the Lottery's just drawed, and the number as has come 
up for the great prize is three, seven, forty-two ! Three, seven, 
forty-two ! " I was givin the man to the Furies myself, for calling 
off the Public's attention — for the Public will turn away, at any 
time, to look at anything in preference to the thing showed 'em ; 
and if you doubt it, get 'em together for any indiwidual purpose 
on the face of the earth, and send only two people in late, and see 
if the whole company an't far more interested in takin particular 
notice of them two than of you — I say, I wasn't best pleased with 
the man for callin out, and wasn't blessin him in my own mind, 



GOING INTO SOCIETY. 201 

when I see Chops's little bell fly out of winder at a old lady, 
and he gets up and kicks his box over, exposin the whole secret, 
and he catches hold of the calves of my legs and he says to me, 
" Carry me into the wan, Toby, and throw a pail of water over me 
or I'm a dead man, for I've come into my property ! " 

Twelve thousand odd hundred pound, was Chops's winnins. He 
had bought a half-ticket for the twenty-five thousand prize, and it 
had come up. The first use he made of his property, was, to 
off'er to fight the Wild Indian for five hundred pound a side, 
him with a poisoned darnin-needle and the Indian with a club; 
but the Indian being in want of backers to that amount, it went 
no further. 

Arter he had been mad for a week — in a state of mind, in short, 
in which, if I had let him sit on the organ for only two minutes, I 
believe he would have bust — but we kep the organ from him — • 
Mr. Chops come round, and behaved liberal and beautiful to all. 
He then sent for a young man he knowed, as had a wery genteel 
appearance and was a Bonnet at a gaming-booth (most respectable 
brought up, father havin been imminent in the livery stable line 
but unfort'nate in a commercial crisis, through paintin a old grey, 
ginger-bay, and sellin him with a Pedigree), and Mr. Chops said 
to this Bonnet, who said his name was Normandy, which it wasn't : 

" Normandy, I'm a goin into Society. Will you go with me ? " 

Says Normandy : "Do I understand you, Mr. Chops, to hinti- 
mate that the 'ole of the expenses of that move will be borne by 
yourself?" 

"Correct," says Mr. Chops. "And you shall have a Princely 
allowance too." 

The Bonnet lifted Mr. Chops upon a chair, to shake hands with 
him, and replied in poetry, with his eyes seemingly full of tears : 

" My boat is on the shore, 
And my bark is on the sea, 
And I do not ask for more, 
But I'll Go : — along with thee." 

They went into Society, in a chay and four greys with silk jackets. 
They took lodgings in Pall Mall, London, and they blazed away. 

In consequence of a note that was brought to Bartlemy Fair in 
the autumn of next year by a servant, most wonderful got up in 
nnilk-white cords and tops, I cleaned myself and went to Pall Mall, 
one evening appinted. The gentlemen was at their wine arter 
dinner, and Mr. Chops's eyes was more fixed in that Ed of his than 
I thought good for him. There was three of 'em (in company, I 
mean), and I knowed the third well. When last met, he had on 



202 GOING INTO SOCIETY. 

a white Roman shirt, and a bishop's mitre covered with leopard- 
skin, and played the clarionet all wrong, in a band at a Wild Beast 
Show. 

This -gent took on not to know me, and Mr. Chops said : " Gen- 
tlemen, this is a old friend of former days : " and Normandy looked 
at me -through a eye-glass, and said, "Magsman, glad to see you ! " 
which I'll take my oath he wasn't. Mr. Chops, to git him con- 
venient to the table, had his chair on a throne (much of the form 
of George the Fourth's in the canvass), but he hardly appeared to 
me to be King there in any other pint of view, for his two gentle- 
men ordered about like Emperors. They was all dressed like 
May-Day — gorgeous ! — and as to Wine, they swam in all sorts. 

I made the round of the bottles, first separate (to say I had done 
it), and then mixed 'em all together (to say I had done it), and then 
tried two of 'em as half-and-half, and then t'other two. Altogether, 
I passed a pleasin evenin, but with a tendency to feel muddled, 
until I considered it good manners to get up and say, " Mr. Chops, 
the best of friends must part, I thank you for the wariety of foreign 
drains you have stood so 'ansome, I looks towards you in red wine, 
and I takes my leave." Mr. Chops replied, " If you'll just hitch 
me out of this over your right arm, Magsman, and carry me down- 
stairs, I'll see you out." I said I couldn't think of such a thing, 
but he would have it, so I lifted him oif his throne. He smelt 
strong of Maideary, and I couldn't help thinking as I carried him 
down that it was like carrying a large bottle full of wine, with a 
rather ugly stopper, a good deal out of proportion. 

When I set him on the door-mat in the hall, he kep me close to 
him by holding on to my coat-collar, and he whispers : 

"I an't 'appy, Magsman." 

" What's on your mind, Mr. Chops 1 " 

"They don't use me well. They an't grateful to me. They 
puts me on the mantel-piece when I won't have in more Cham- 
pagne-wine, and they locks me in the sideboard when I won't give 
up my property." 

" Get rid of 'em, Mr. Chops." 

"I can't. We're in Society together, and what would Society 



say 



?" 



Come out of Society ! " says I. 

"I can't. You don't know what you're talking about. When 
you have once gone into Society, you mustn't come out of it." • 

"Then, if you'll excuse the freedom, Mr. Chops," were my re- 
mark, shaking my head grave, "I think it's a pity you ever went 
in." 

Mr. Chops shook that deep Ed of his, to a surprisin extent, and 



GOING INTO SOCIETY. 203 

slapped it half a dozen times with his hand, and with more Wice 
than I thought were in him. Then, he says, " You're a good fellow 
but you don't understand. Good night, go along. Magsman the 
little man will now walk three times round the Cairawan and re- 
tire behind the curtain." The last I see of him on that occasion 
was his tryin, on the extremest werge of insensibility, to climb up 
the stairs, one by one, with his hands and knees. They'd have 
been much too steep for him, if he had been sober; but he wouldn't 
be helped. 

It warn't long after that, that I read in the newspaper of Mr 
Chops's being presented at court. It was printed, " It will be recol- 
lected " — and I've noticed in my life, that it is sure to be printed 
that it ivill be recollected, whenever it won't— " that Mr. Chops is 
the individual of small stature, whose brilliant success in the last 
State^ Lottery attracted so much attention." Well, I says to my- 
self. Such is Life ! He has been and done it in earnest at last ! He 
has astonished George the Fourth ! 

(On account of which, I had that canvass new-painted, him with 
a bag of money in his hand, a presentin it to George the Fourth, and 
a lady in Ostrich Feathers falliu in love with him in a bag-wig, 
sword, and buckles correct.) 

I took the House as is the subject of present inquiries though 

not the honour of bein acquainted — and I run Magsman's Amuse- 
ments in it thirteen months — sometimes one thing, sometimes an- 
other, sometimes nothin particular, but always all the canvasses 
outside. One night, when we had played the last company out, 
which was a shy company, through its raining Heavens hard, I was 
takin a pipe in the one pair back along with the young man with 
the toes, which I had taken on for a month (though he never drawed 
— except on paper), and I heard a kickin at the street door. 
'' Halloa ! " I says to the young man, " what's up ! " He rubs his 
eyebrows with his toes, and he says, " I can't imagine, Mr. Mags- 
man" — which he never could imagine nothin, and was monotonous 
company. 

The noise not leavin oif, I laid down my pipe, and I took up a 
candle, and I went dowm and opened the door. I looked out into 
the street ; but nothin could I see, and nothin was I aware of, un- 
til I turned round quick, because some creetur run between my legs 
into the passage. There was Mr. Chops ! 

"Magsman," he says, "take me, on the old terms, and you've 
got me ; if it's done, say done ! " 

I was all of a maze, but I said, "Done, sir.'* 
"Done to your done, and double done!" says he. "Have you 
got a bit of supper in the house % " 



204 GOING INTO SOCIETY. 

Bearin in mind them sparklin warieties of foreign drains as we'd 
guzzled away at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer him cold sas- 
sages and gin-and- water ; but he took 'em both and took 'em free ; 
bavin a chair for his table, and sittin down at it on a stool, like 
hold times. I, all of a maze all the while. 

It was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sassages (beef, 
and to the best of my calculations two pound and a quarter), that 
the wisdom as was in that little man began to come out of him like 
prespiration. 

"Magsman," he says, "look upon me! You see afore you, One 
as has both gone into Society and come out." 

"0! You are out of it, Mr. Chops? How did you get out, 
sir?" 

"Sold out! " says he. You never saw the like of the wisdom 
as his Ed expressed, when he made use of them two words. 

"My friend Magsman, I'll impart to you a discovery I've made. 
It's wallable; it's cost twelve thousand five hundred pound; it may 
do you good in life. — The secret of this matter is, that it an't so 
much that a person goes into Society, as that Society goes into a 
person." 

Not exactly keeping up with his meanin, I shook my head, put 
on a deep look, and said, " You're right there, Mr. Chops." 

"Magsman," he says, twitching me by the leg, "Society has 
gone into me, to the tune of every penny of my property." 

I felt that I went pale, and though nat'rally a bold speaker, I 
couldn't hardly say, "Where's Normandy?" 

"Bolted. With a plate," said Mr. Chops. 

"And t'other one ?" meaning him as formerly wore the bishop's 
mitre. 

" Bolted. With the jewels," said Mr. Chops. 

I sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me. 

" Magsman," he says, and he seemed to myself to get wiser as 
he got hoarser ; " Society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs. At 
the court of Saint James's, they was all a doing my old business — 
all a goin three times round the Cairawan, in the hold court-suits 
and properties. Elsewheres, they was most of 'em ringin their little 
bells out of make-believes. Everywheres, the sarser was a goin 
round. Magsman, the sarser is the uniwersal Institution ! " 

I perceived, you understand, that he was soured by his misfort- 
uns, and I felt for Mr. Chops. 

"As to Fat Ladies," says he, giving his head a tremendious one 
agin the wall, " there's lots of tketn in Society, and worse than the 
original. Hers was a outrage upon Taste — simply a outrage upon 
Taste — awakenin contempt — carryin its own punishment in the 



GOING INTO SOCIETY. 205 

form of a Indian ! " Here he giv himself another tremendious one. 
" But theirs, Magsman, theirs is mercenary outrages. Lay in Cash- 
meer shawls, buy bracelets, strew 'em and a lot of 'andsome fans 
and things about your rooms, let it be known that you give away 
like water to all as come to admire, and the Fat Ladies that don't 
exhibit for so much down upon the drum, will come from all the 
pints of the compass to flock about you, whatever you are. They'll 
drill holes in your 'art, Magsman, like a Cullender. And when you've 
no more left to give, they'll laugh at you to your face, and leave 
you to have your bones picked dry by Wulturs, -like the dead Wild 
Ass of the Prairies that you deserve to be ! " Here he giv himself 
the most tremendious one of all, and dropped. 

I thought he was gone. His Ed was so heavy, and he knocked 
it so hard, and he fell so stoney, and the sassagerial disturbance 
in him must have been so immense, that I thought he was gone. 
But, he soon come round with care, and he sat up on the floor, 
and he said to me, with wisdom comin out of his eyes, if ever it 
come: 

" Magsman ! The most material difference between the two 
states of existence through which your unappy friend has passed ; " 
he reached out his poor little hand, and his tears dropped down on 
the moustachio which it was a credit to him to have done his best 
to grow, but it is not in mortals to command success, — " the dif- 
ference is this. When I was out of Society, I was paid light for 
being seen. When I went into Society, I paid heavy for being seen. 
I prefer the former, even if I wasn't forced upon it. Give me out 
through the trumpet, in the hold way, to-morrow." 

Arter that, he slid into the line again as easy as if he had been 
iled all over. But the organ was kep from him, and no allusions 
was ever made, when a company was in, to his property. He got 
wiser every day ; his views of Society and the Public was luminous, 
bewilderin, awful ; and his Ed got bigger and bigger as his Wisdom 
expanded it. 

He took well, and pulled 'em in most excellent for nine weeks. 
At the expiration of that period, when his Ed was a sight, he ex- 
pressed one evenin, the last Company bavin been turned out, and 
the door shut, a wish to have a little music. 

" Mr. Chops," I said (I never dropped the "Mr." with him; the 
world might do it, but not me); "Mr. Chops, are you sure as you 
are in a state of mind and body to sit upon the organ 1 " 

His answer was this : " Toby, when next met with on the tramp, 
I forgive her and the Indian. And I am." 

It was with fear and trembling that I began to turn the handle ; 
but he sat like a lamb. It will be my belief to my dying day, that 



206 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

I see his Ed expand as he sat ; you may therefore judge how great 
his thoughts was. He sat out all the changes, and then he come off. 

"Toby," he says, with a quiet smile, "The little man will now 
walk three times round the Cairawan, and retire behind the curtain." 

When we called him in the morning, we found him gone to a 
much better Society than mine or Pall Mall's. I giv Mr. Chops 
as comfortable a funeral as lay in my power, followed myself as 
Chief, and had the George the Fourth canvass carried first, in the 
form of a banner. But, the House was so dismal arterwards, that 
I giv it up, and took to the Wan again. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

IN THREE CHAPTERS. 

Chapter I. 

THE MORTALS IN THE HOUSE. 

Under none of the accredited ghostly circumstances, and en- 
vironed by none of the conventional ghostly surroundings, did I 
first make acquaintance with the house which is the subject of this 
Christmas piece. I saw it in the dayliglit, with the sun upon it. 
There was no wind, no rain, no lightning, no thunder, no awful or 
unwonted circumstance, of any kind, to heighten its effect. More 
than that : I had come to it direct from a railway station : it was not 
more than a mile distant from the railway station ; and, as I stood 
outside the house, looking back upon the way I had come, I could 
see the goods train running smoothly along the embankment in the 
valley. I will not say that everything was utterly commonplace, 
because I doubt if anything can be that, except to utterly common- 
place people — and there my vanity steps in ; but, I will take it on 
myself to say that anybody might see the house as I saw it, any 
fine autumn morning. 

The manner of my lighting on it was this. 

I was travelling towards London out of the North, intending to 
stop by the way, to look at the house. My health required a 
temporary residence in the country; and a friend of mine who 
knew that, and who had happened to drive past the house, had 
written to me to suggest it as a likely place. I had got into the 
train at midnight, and had fallen asleep, and had woke up and 
had sat looking out of window at the brilliant Northern Lights in 
the sky, and had fallen asleep again, and had woke up again to 




I Jll. II \ I Nil li HOUSE. 



208 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

find the night gone, with the usual discontented conviction on me 
that I hadn't been to sleep at all; — upon which question, in the first 
imbecility of that condition, I am ashamed to believe that I would 
have done wager by battle with the man who sat opposite me. 
That opposite man had had, through the night — as that opposite 
man always has — several legs too many, and all of them too long. 
In addition to this unreasonable conduct (which was only to be ex- 
pected of him), he had had a pencil and a pocket-book, and had 
been perpetually listening and taking notes. It had appeared to 
me that these aggravating notes related to the jolts and bumps of 
the carriage, and I should have resigned myself to his taking them, 
under a general supposition that he was in the civil-engineering 
way of life, if he had not sat staring straight over my head when- 
ever he listened. He was a goggle-eyed gentleman of a perplexed 
aspect, and his demeanour became unbearable. 

It was a cold, dead morning (the sun not being up yet), and 
when I had out-watched the paling light of the fires of the iron- 
country, and the curtain of heavy smoke that hung at once between 
me and the stars and between me and the day, I turned to my 
fellow-traveller and said : 

"I heg your pardon, sir, but do you observe anything par- 
ticular in me 1 " For, really, he appeared to be taking down, 
either my travelling-cap or my hair, with a minuteness that was 
a liberty. 

The goggle-eyed gentleman withdrew his eyes from behind me, 
as if the back of the carriage were a hundred miles off", and said, 
with a lofty look of compassion for my insignificance : 

"In you, sir? — B." 

" B, sir ? " said I, growing warm. 

" I have nothing to do with you, sir," returned the gentleman ; 
"pray let me listen — 0." 

He enunciated this vowel after a pause, and noted it down. 

At first I was alarmed, for an Express lunatic and no com- 
munication with the guard, is a serious position. The thought 
came to my relief that the gentleman might be what is popularly 
called a Rapper : one of a sect for (some of) whom I have the high- 
est respect, but whom I don't believe in. I was going to ask him 
the question, when he took the bread out of my mouth. 

"You will excuse me," said the gentleman contemptuously, "if I 
am too much in advance of common humanity to trouble myself at 
all about it. I have passed the night — as indeed I pass the whole 
of my time now — in spiritual intercourse." 

" ! " said I, something snappishly. 

"The conferences of the night began," continued the gentleman, 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 209 

turning several leaves of his note-book, " with this message : ' Evil 
communications corrupt good manners.' " 

" Sound," said I ; "but, absolutely new ?" 

"New from spirits," returned the gentleman. 

I could only repeat my rather snappish " ! " and ask if I might 
be favoured with the last communication. 

"'A bird in the hand,'" said the gentleman, reading his last 
entry with great solemnity, " 'is worth two in the Bosh.' " 

" Truly I am of the same opinion," said I; " but shouldn't it be 
Bush?" 

" It came to me. Bosh," returned the gentleman. 

The gentleman then informed me that the spirit of Socrates had 
delivered this special revelation in the course of the night. " My 
friend, I hope you are pretty well. There are two in this railway 
carriage. How do you do ? There are seventeen thousand four 
hundred and seventy-nine spirits here, but you cannot see them. 
Pythagoras is here. He is not at liberty to mention it, but hopes 
you like travelling." Galileo likewise had dropped in, with this 
scientific intelligence. " I am glad to see you, amico. Come sta? 
Water will freeze when it is cold enough. Addiol " In the course 
of the night, also, the following phenomena had occurred. Bishop 
Butler had insisted on spelling his name, "Bubler," for which 
offence against orthography and good manners he had been dis- 
missed as out of temper. John Milton (suspected of wilful mys- 
tification) had repudiated the authorship of Paradise Lost, and had 
introduced, as joint authors of that poem, two Unknown gentle- 
men, respectively named Grungers and Scadgingtone. And Prince 
Arthur, nephew of King John of England, had described himself 
as tolerably comfortable in the seventh circle, where he was learn- 
ing to paint on velvet, under the direction of Mrs. Trimmer and 
Mary Queen of Scots. 

If this should meet the eye of the gentleman who favoured me 
with these disclosures, I trust he will excuse my confessing that 
the sight of the rising sun, and the contemplation of the magnifi- 
cent Order of the vast Universe, made me impatient of them. In 
a word, I was so impatient of them, that I was mightily glad to 
get out at the next station, and to exchange these clouds and va- 
pours for the free air of Heaven. 

By that time it was a beautiful morning. As I walked away 
among such leaves as had already fallen from the golden, brown, 
and russet trees ; and as I looked around me on the wonders of 
Creation, and thought of the steady, unchanging, and harmonious 
laws by which they are sustained ; the gentleman's spiritual inter- 
course seemed to me as poor a piece of journey-work as ever this 



210 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

world saw. In which heathen state of mind, I came within view 
of the house, and stopjDed to examine it attentively. 

It was a solitary house, standing in a sadly neglected garden : a 
pretty even square of some two acres. It was a house of about 
the time of George the Second ; as stiff, as cold, as formal, and in 
as bad taste, as could possibly be desired by the most loyal admirer 
of the whole quartett of Georges. It was uninhabited, but had, 
within a year or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable ; 
I say cheaply, because the work had been done in a surface manner, 
and was already decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the 
colours were fresh. A lop-sided board drooped over the garden 
wall, announcing that it was " to let on very reasonable terms, well 
furnished." It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by 
trees, and, in particular, there were six tall poplars before the front 
windows, which were excessively melancholy, and the site of which 
had been extremely ill chosen. 

It was easy to see that it was an avoided house — a house that 
was shunned by the village, to which my eye was guided by a church 
spire some half a mile off — a house that nobody would take. And 
the natural inference was, that it had the reputation of being a 
haunted house. 

No period within the four-and-twenty hours of day and night is 
so solemn to me, as the early morning. In the summer-time, I 
often rise very early, and repair to my room to do a day's work 
before breakfast, and I am always on those occasions deeply im- 
pressed by the stillness and solitude around me. Besides that there 
is something awful in the being surrounded by familiar faces asleep 
— in the knowledge that those who are dearest to us and to whom 
we are dearest, are profoundly unconscious of us, in an impassive 
state, auticipative of that mysterious condition to which we are all 
tending — the stopped life, the broken threads of yesterday, the 
deserted seat, the closed book, the unfinished but abandoned occu- 
pation, all are images of Death. The tranquillity of the hour is 
the tranquillity of Death. The colour and the chill have the same 
association. Even a certain air that familiar household objects take 
upon them when they first emerge from the shadows of the night 
into the morning, of being newer, and as they used to be long ago, 
has its counterpart in the subsidence of the worn face of maturity 
or age, in death, into the old youthful look. Moreover, I once saw 
the apparition of my father, at this hour. He was alive and well, 
and nothing ever came of it, but I saw him in the daylight, sitting 
with his back towards me, on a seat that stood beside my bed. 
His head was resting on his hand, and whether he was slumbering 
or grieving, I could not discern. Amazed to see him there, I sat 



O } 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 211 

up, moved my position, leaned out of bed, and watched him. As 
he did not move, I spoke to him more than once. As he did not 
move then, I became alarmed and laid my hand upon his shoulder, 
as I thought — and there was no such thing. 

For all these reasons, and for others less easily and briefly stata- 
ble, I find the early morning to be my most ghostly time. Any 
house would be more or less haunted, to me, in the early mornin_ 
and a haunted house could scarcely address me to greater advan 
tage than then. 

I walked on into the village, with the desertion of this house 
upon my mind, and I found the landlord of the little inn, sanding 
his door-step. I bespoke breakfast, and broached the subject of 
the house. 

" Is it haunted ? " I asked. 

The landlord looked at me, shook his head, and answered, "I 
say nothing." 

"Thenit ?"s haunted?" 

" Well ! " cried the landlord, in an outburst of frankness that had 
the appearance of desperation — " I wouldn't sleep in it." 

"Why not?" 

"If I wanted to have all the bells in a house ring, with nobody 
to ring 'em ; and all the doors in a house bang, with nobody to 
bang 'em ; and all sorts of feet treading about, with no feet there ; 
why, then," said the landlord, "I'd sleep in that house." 

" Is anything seen there ? " 

The landlord looked at me again, and then, with his former ap- 
pearance of desperation, called down his stable-yard for " Ikey ! " 

The call produced a high-shouldered young fellow, with a round 
red face, a short crop of sandy hair, a very broad humorous mouth, 
a turned-up nose, and a great sleeved waistcoat of purple bars, 
with mother-of-pearl buttons, that seemed to be growing upon him, 
and to be in "a fair way — if it were not pruned — of covering his 
head and overrunning his boots. 

"This gentleman wants to know," said the landlord, "if any- 
thing's seen at the Poplars." 

"'Ooded woman with a howl," said Ikey, in a state of great 
freshness. 

" Do you mean a cry 1 " 

" I mean a bird, sir." 

" A hooded woman with an owl. Dear me ! Did you ever sec 
her ? " 

" I seen the howl." 

" Never the woman?" 

" Not so plain as the howl, but they always keeps together." 



212 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

" Has anybody ever seen the woman as plainly as the owl ? " 

" Lord bless you, sir ! Lots." 

"Who?" 

" Lord bless you, sir ! Lots." 

" The general-dealer opposite, for instance, who is opening his 
shop?" 

"Perkins? Bless you, Perkins wouldn't go a-nigh the place. 
No ! " observed the young man, with considerable feeling ; "he 
an't overwise, an't Perkins, but he an't such a fool as thaty 

(Here, the landlord murmured his confidence in Perkins's know- 
ing better.) 

"Who is — or who was — the hooded woman with the owl? 
Do you know ? " 

" Well ! " said Ikey, holding up his cap with one hand while he 
scratched his head with the other, " they say, in general, that she 
was murdered, and the howl he 'ooted the while." 

This very concise summary of the facts was all I could learn, 
except that a young man, as hearty and likely a young man as ever 
I see, had been took with fits and held down in 'em, after seeing 
the hooded woman. Also, that a personage, dimly described as "a 
hold chap, a sort of one-eyed tramp, answering to the name of Joby, 
unless you challenged him as Greenwood, and then he said, ' Why 
not ? and even if so, mind your own business,' " had encountered 
the hooded woman, a matter of five or six times. But, I was not 
materially assisted by these witnesses : inasmuch as the first was 
in California, and the last was, as Ikey said (and he was confirmed 
by the landlord), Anywheres. 

Now, although I regard with a hushed and solemn fear, the 
mysteries, between which and this state of existence is interposed 
the barrier of the great trial and change that fall on all the things 
that live ; and although I have not the audacity to pretend that 
I know anything of them ; I can no more reconcile the mere bang- 
ing of doors, ringing of bells, creaking of boards, and such-like insig- 
nificances, with the majestic beauty and pervading analogy of all 
the Divine rules that I am permitted to understand, than I had 
been able, a little while before, to yoke the spiritual intercourse 
of my fellow-traveller to the chariot of the rising sun. Moreover, 
I had lived in two haunted houses — both abroad. In one of these, 
an old Italian palace, which bore the reputation of being very badly 
haunted indeed, and which had recently been twice abandoned on 
that account, I lived eight months, most tranquilly and pleasantly : 
notwithstanding that the house had a score of mysterious bedrooms, 
which were never used, and possessed, in one large room in which 
I sat reading, times out of number at all hours, and next to which 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 213 

I slept, a haunted chamber of the first pretensions. I gently hinted 
these considerations to the landlord. And as to this particular 
house having a bad name, I reasoned with him, Why, how many 
things had bad names undeservedly, and how easy it was to give 
bad names, and did he not think that if he and I were persistently 
to whisper in the village that any weird-looking old drunken tinker 
of the neighbourhood had sold himself to the Devil, he would come 
in time to be suspected of that commercial venture ! All this wise 
talk was perfectly ineffective with the landlord, I am bound to 
confess, and was as dead a failure as ever I made in my life. 

To cut this part of the story short, I w&,s piqued about the 
haunted house, and was already half resolved to take it. So, after 
breakfast, I got the keys from Perkins's brother-in-law (a whip and 
harness maker, who keeps the Post Office, and is under submission 
to a most rigorous wife of the Doubly Seceding Little Emmanuel 
persuasion), and went up to the house, attended by my landlord 
and by Ikey. 

Within, I found it, as I had expected, transcendently dismal. 
The slowly changing shadows waved on it from the heavy trees, 
were doleful in the last degree ; the house was ill-placed, ill-built, 
ill-planned, and ill-fitted. It was damp, it was not free from dry 
rot, there was a flavour of rats in it, and it was the gloomy victim 
of that indescribable decay which settles on all the work of man's 
hands whenever it is not turned to man's account. The kitchens 
and offices were too large, and too remote from each other. Above 
stairs and below, waste tracts of passage intervened between patches 
of fertility represented by rooms ; and there was a mouldy old well 
with a green growth upon it, hiding like a murderous trap, near 
the bottom of the back-stairs, under the double row of bells. One 
of these bells was labelled, on a black ground in faded white letters. 
Master B. This, they told me, was the bell that rang the most. 

"Who was Master B. ?" I asked. " Is it known what he did 
while the owl hooted ? " 

" Rang the bell," said Ikey. 

I was rather struck by the prompt dexterity with which this 
young man pitched his fur cap at the bell, and rang it himself. It 
was a loud, unpleasant bell, and made a very disagreeable sound. 
The other bells were inscribed according to the names of the rooms 
to which their wires were conducted : as " Picture Room," " Double 
Room," "Clock Room," and the like. Following Master B.'s bell 
to its source, I found that young gentleman to have had but in- 
different third-class accommodation in a triangular cabin under the 
cock-loft, with a corner fire-place which Master B. must have been 
exceedingly small if he were ever able to warm himself at, and a 



214 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

corner chimney-piece like a pyramidal staircase to the ceiling for 
Tom Thumb. The papering of one side of the room had dropped 
down bodily, with fragments of plaster adhering to it, and almost 
blocked up the door. It appeared that Master B., in his spiritual 
condition, always made a point of pulling the paper down. Neither 
the landlord nor Ikey could suggest why he made such a fool of 
himself. 

Except that the house had an immensely large rambling loft at 
top, I made no other discoveries. It was moderately well furnished, 
but sparely. Some of the furniture — say, a third — was as old 
as the house ; the rest was of various periods within the last half 
century. I was referred to a corn-chandler in the market-place of 
the county town to treat for the house. I went that day, and I 
took it for six months. 

It was just the middle of October when I moved in with my 
maiden sister (I venture to call her eight-and-thirty, she is so very 
handsome, sensible, and engaging). We took with us a deaf stable- 
man, my bloodhound Turk, two women servants, and a young 
person called an Odd Girl. I have reason to record of the attend- 
ant last enumerated, who was one of the Saint Lawrence's Union 
Female Orphans, that she was a fatal mistake and a disastrous 
engagement. 

The year was dying early, the leaves were falling fast, it was a 
raw cold day when we took possession, and the gloom of the house 
was most depressing. The cook (an amiable woman, but of a weak 
turn of intellect) burst into tears on beholding the kitchen, and 
requested that her silver watch might be delivered over to her 
sister (2 Tuppintock's Gardens, Liggs's Walk, Clapham Rise), in the 
event of anything happening to her from the damp. Streaker, the 
housemaid, feigned cheerfulness, but was the greater martyr. The 
Odd Girl, who had never been in the country, alone was pleased, 
and made arrangements for sowing an acorn in the garden outside 
the scullery window, and rearing an oak. 

We went, before dark, through all the natural — as opposed to 
supernatural — miseries incidental to our state. Dispiriting reports 
ascended (like the smoke) from the basement in volumes, and de- 
scended from the upper rooms. There was no rolling-pin, there 
was no salamander (which failed to surprise me, for I don't know 
what it is), there was nothing in the house, what there was, was 
broken, the last people must have lived like pigs, what could the 
meaning of the landlord be? Through these distresses, the Odd 
Girl was cheerful and exemplary. But within four hours after 
dark we had got into a supernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had 
seen "Eyes," and was in hysterics. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 215 

My sister and I had agreed to keep the haunting strictly to our- 
selves, and my impression was, and still is, that I had not left Ikey, 
when he helped to unload the cart, alone with the women, or any 
one of them, for one minute. Nevertheless, as I say, the Odd Girl 
had "seen Eyes" (no other explanation could ever be drawn from 
her), before nine, and by ten o'clock had had as much vinegar 
applied to her as would pickle a handsome salmon. 

I leave a discerning public to judge of my feelings, when, under 
these untoward circumstances, at about half-past ten o'clock Mas- 
ter B.'s bell began to ring in a most infuriated manner, and Turk 
howled until the house resounded with his lamentations ! 

I hope I may never again be in a state of mind so unchristian as 
the mental frame in which I lived for some weeks, respecting the 
memory of Master B. Whether his bell was rung by rats, or mice, 
or bats, or wind, or what other accidental vibration, or sometimes 
by one cause, sometimes another, and sometimes by collusion, I 
don't know ; but, certain it is, that it did ring two nights out of 
three, until I conceived the happy idea of twisting Master B.'s neck 
— in other words, breaking his bell short off — and silencing that 
young gentleman, as to my experience and belief, for ever. 

But, by that time, the Odd Girl had developed such improving 
powers of catalepsy, that she had become a shining example of that 
very inconvenient disorder. She would stiffen, like a Guy Fawkes 
endowed with unreason, on the most irrelevant occasions. I would 
address the servants in a lucid manner, pointing out to them that 
I had painted Master B.'s room and balked the paper, and taken 
Master B.'s bell away and balked the ringing, and if they could 
suppose that that confounded boy had lived and died, to clothe 
himself with no better behaviour than would most unquestionably 
have brought him and the sharpest particles of a birch-broom 
into close acquaintance in the present imperfect state of exist- 
ence, could they also suppose a mere poor human being, such 
as I was, capable by those contemptible means of counteracting 
and limiting the powers of the disembodied spirits of the dead, 
or of any spirits 1 — I say I would become emphatic and cogent, 
not to say rather complacent, in such an address, when it would all 
go for nothing by reason of the Odd Girl's suddenly stiffening 
from the toes upward, and glaring among us like a parochial 
petrifaction. 

Streaker, the housemaid, too, had an attribute of a most discom- 
fiting nature. I am unable to say whether she was of an unusu- 
ally lymphatic temperament, or what else was the matter with her, 
but this young woman became a mere Distillery for the production 
of the largest and most transparent tears I ever met with. Com- 



216 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

bined with these characteristics, was a peculiar tenacity of hold in 
those specimens, so that they didn't fall, but hung upon her face 
and nose. In this condition, and mildly and deplorably shaking 
her head, her silence would throw me more heavily than the Admi- 
rable Crichton could have done in a verbal disputation for a purse 
of money. Cook, likewise, always covered me with confusion as 
with a garment, by neatly winding up the session with the protest 
that the Ouse was wearing her out, and by meekly repeating her 
last wishes regarding her silver watch. 

As to our nightly life, the contagion of suspicion and fear was 
among us, and there is no such contagion under the sky. Hooded 
woman ? According to the accounts, we were in a perfect Convent 
of hooded women. Noises? With that contagion down-stairs, I 
myself have sat in the dismal parlour, listening, until I have heard 
so many and such strange noises, that they would have chilled my 
blood if I had not warmed it by dashing out to make discoveries. 
Try this in bed, in the dead of the night ; try this at your own 
comfortable fire-side, in the life of the night. You can fill any 
house with noises, if you will, until you have a noise for every 
nerve in your nervous system. 

I repeat; the contagion of suspicion and fear was among us, 
and there is no such contagion under the sky. The women (their 
noses in a chronic state of excoriation from smelling-salts) were 
always primed and loaded for a swoon, and ready to go off with 
hair-triggers. The two elder detached the Odd Girl on all expedi- 
tions that were considered doubly hazardous, and she always estab- 
lished the reputation of such adventures by coming back cataleptic. 
If Cook or Streaker w^ent overhead after dark, we knew we should 
presently hear a bump on the ceiling ; and this took place so con- 
stantly, that it was as if a fighting man were engaged to go about 
the house, administering a touch of his art which I believe is called 
The Auctioneer, to every domestic he met with. 

It was in vain to do anything. It was in vain to be frightened, 
for the moment, in one's own person, by a real owl, and then to 
show the owl. It was in vain to discover, by striking an acci- 
dental discord on the piano, that Turk always howled at particu- 
lar notes and combinations. It was in vain to be a Rhadamanthus 
with the bells, and if an unfortunate bell rang without leave, to 
have it down inexorably and silence it. It was in vain to fire up 
chimneys, let torches dowm the well, charge furiously into sus- 
pected rooms and recesses. We changed servants, and it was no 
better. The new set ran away, and a third set came, and it was 
no better. At last, our comfortable housekeeping got to be so 
disorganised and wretched, that I one night dejectedly said to my 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 217 

sister : " Patty, I begin to despair of our getting people to go on 
with us here, and I think we must give this up." 

My sister, who is a woman of immense spirit, replied, "No, 
John, don't give it up. Don't be beaten, John. There is another 
way." 

"And what is that?" said I. 

"John," returned my sister, "if we are not to be driven out of 
this house, and that for no reason whatever that is apparent to 
you or me, we must help ourselves and take the house wholly and 
solely into our own hands." 

" But, the servants," said I. 

" Have no servants," said my sister, boldly. 

Like most people in my grade of life, I had never thought of the 
possibility of going on without those faithful obstructions. The 
notion was so new to me when suggested, that I looked very 
doubtful. 

"We know they come here to be frightened and infect one 
another, and we know they are frightened and do infect one 
another," said my sister. 

"With the exception of Bottles," I observed, in a meditative 
tone. 

(The deaf stableman. I kept him in my service, and still 
keep him, as a phenomenon of moroseness not to be matched in 
England.) 

"To be sure, John," assented my sister; "except Bottles. 
And what does that go to prove? Bottles talks to nobody, and 
hears nobody unless he is absolutely roared at, and what alarm 
has Bottles ever given, or taken ! None." 

This was perfectly true ; the individual in question having 
retired, every night at ten o'clock, to his bed over the coach- 
house, with no other company than a pitchfork and a pail of 
water. That the pail of water would have been over me, and 
the pitchfork through me, if I had put myself without announce- 
ment in Bottles's way after that minute, I had deposited in my own 
mind as a fact worth remembering. Neither had Bottles ever taken 
the least notice of any of our many uproars. An imperturbable 
and speechless man, he had sat at his supper, with Streaker pres- 
ent in a swoon, and the Odd Girl marble, and had only put another 
potato in his cheek, or profited by the general misery to help him- 
self to beefsteak pie. 

"And so," continued my sister, "I exempt Bottles. And con- 
sidering, John, that the house is too large, and perhaps too lonely, 
to be kept well in hand by Bottles, you, and me, I propose that 
we cast about among our friends for a certain selected number 



218 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

of the most reliable and willing — form a Society here for three 
months — wait upon ourselves and one another — live cheerfully 
and socially — and see what happens." 

I was so charmed with my sister, that I embraced her on the 
spot, and went into her plan with the greatest ardour. 

We were then in the third week of November ; but, we took 
our measures so vigorously, and were so well seconded by the 
friends in whom we confided, that there was still a week of the 
month unexpired, when our party all came down together mer- 
rily, and mustered in the haunted house. 

I will mention, in this place, two small changes that I made 
while my sister and I were yet alone. It occurring to me as not 
improbable that Turk howled in the house at night, partly because 
he wanted to get out of it, I stationed him in his kennel outside, 
but unchained ; and I seriously warned the village that any man 
who came in his way must not expect to leave him without a rip 
in his own throat. I then casually asked Ikey if he were a judge 
of a gun? On his saying, "Yes, sir, I knows a good gun when I 
sees her," I begged the favour of his stepping up to the house and 
looking at mine. 

^^ She's a true one, sir," said Ikey, after inspecting a double-bar- 
relled rifle that I bought in New York a few years ago. " No 
mistake about her, sir." 

"Ikey," said I, "don't mention it; I have seen something in 
this house." 

"No, sir?" he whispered, greedily opening his eyes. "'Ooded 
lady, sir ? " 

" Don't be frightened," said I. "It was a figure rather like 
you." 

"Lord, sir?" 

" Ikey ! " said I, shaking hands with him warmly : I may say 
aff'ectionately ; " if there is any truth in these ghost-stories, the 
greatest service I can do you, is, to fire at that figure. And I prom- 
ise you, by Heaven and earth, I will do it with this gun if I see it 
again ! " 

The young man thanked me, and took his leave with some little 
precipitation, after declining a glass of liquor. I imparted my secret 
to him, because I had never quite forgotten his throwing his cap at 
the bell ; because I had, on another occasion, noticed something very 
like a fur cap, lying not far from the bell, one night when it had 
burst out ringing ; and because I had remarked that we were at our 
ghostliest whenever he came up in the evening to comfort the ser- 
vants. Let me do Ikey no injustice. He was afraid of the house, 
and believed in its being haunted; and yet he would play false on 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 219 

the haunting side, so surely as he got an opportunity. The Odd 
Girl's case was exactly similar. She went about the house in a 
state of real terror, and yet lied monstrously and wilfully, and in- 
vented many of the alarms she spread, and made many of the sounds 
we heard. I had had my eye on the two, and I know it. It is 
not necessary for me, here, to account for this preposterous state of 
mind ; I content myself with remarking that it is familiarly known 
to every intelligent man who has had fair medical, legal, or other 
watchful experience ; that it is as well established and as common 
a state of mind as any with which observers are acquainted ; and 
that it is one of the first elements, above all others, rationally to be 
suspected in, and strictly looked for, and separated from, any ques- 
tion of this kind. 

To return to our party. The first thing we did when we were 
all assembled, was, to draw lots for bedrooms. That done, and 
every bedroom, and, indeed, the whole house, having been minutely 
examined by the whole body, we allotted the various household 
duties, as if we had been on a gipsy party, or a yachting party, or 
a hunting party, or were shipwrecked. I then recounted the float- 
ing rumours concerning the hooded lady, the owl, and Master B. : 
with others, still more filmy, which had floated about during our 
occupation, relative to some ridiculous old ghost of the female gen- 
der who went^up and down, carrying the ghost of a round table ; 
and also to an impalpable Jackass, whom nobody was ever able to 
catch. Some of these ideas I really believe our people below had 
communicated to one another in some diseased way, without con- 
veying them in words. We then gravely called one another to wit- 
ness, that we were not there to be deceived, or to deceive — which 
we considered pretty much the same thing — and that, with a 
serious sense of responsibility, we would be strictly true to one an- 
other, and would strictly follow out the truth. The understanding 
was established, that any one who heard unusual noises in the night, 
and who wished to trace them, should knock at my door ; lastly, 
that on Twelfth Night, the last night of holy Christmas, all our 
individual experiences since that then present hour of our coming 
together in the haunted house, should be brought to light for the 
good of all ; and that we would hold our peace on the subject till 
then, unless on some remarkable provocation to break silence. 
We were, in number and in character, as follows : 
First — to get my sister and myself out of the way — there were 
we two. In the drawing of lots, my sister drew her own room, and 
I drew Master B.'s. Next, there was our first cousin John Herschel, 
so called after the great astronomer : than whom I suppose a better 
man at a telescope does not breathe. With him, was his wife: a 



220 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

charming creature to whom he had been married in the previous 
spring. I thought it (under the circumstances) rather imprudent 
to bring her, because there is no knowing what even a false alarm 
may do at such a time ; but I suppose he knew his own business 
best, and I must say that if she had been my wife, I never could 
have left her endearing and bright face behind. They drew the 
Clock Room. Alfred Starling, an uncommonly agreeable young 
fellow of eight-and-twenty, for whom I have the greatest liking, 
was in the Double Room; mine, usually, and designated by that 
name from having a dressing-room within it, with two large and cum- 
bersome windows, which no wedges / was ever able to make, would 
keep from shaking, in any weather, wind or no wind. Alfred is a 
young fellow who pretends to be "fast " (another word for loose, as 
I understand the term), but who is much too good and sensible for 
that nonsense, and who would have distinguished himself before now, 
if his father had not unfortunately left him a small independence of 
two hundred a year, on the strength of which his only occupation 
in life has been to spend six. I am in hopes, however, that his 
Banker may break, or that he may enter into some speculation 
guaranteed to pay twenty per cent.; for, I am convinced that if he 
could only be ruined, his fortune is made. Belinda Bates, bosom 
friend of my sister, and a most intellectual, amiable, and delightful 
girl, got the Picture Room. She has a fine genius f» poetry, com- 
bined with real business earnestness, and "goes in" — to use an 
expression of Alfred's — for Woman's mission, Woman's rights, 
Woman's wrongs, and everything that is woman's with the capital 
W, or is not and ought to be, or is and ought not to be. " Most 
praiseworthy, my dear, and Heaven prosper you ! " I whispered to 
her on the first night of my taking leave of her at the Picture-Room 
door, "but don't overdo it. And in respect of the great necessity 
there is, my darling, for more employments being within the reach 
of Woman than our civilisation has as yet assigned to her, don't fly at 
the unfortunate men, even those men who are at first sight in your 
way, as if they were the natural oppressors of your sex; for, trust 
me, Belinda, they do sometimes spend their wages among wives and 
daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, and grandmothers ; and the play 
is, really, not all Wolf and Red Riding-Hood, but has other parts 
in it." However, I digress. 

Belinda, as I have mentioned, occupied the Picture Room. We 
had but three other chambers : the Corner Room, the Cupboard 
Room, and the Garden Room. My old friend, Jack Governor, 
" slung his hammock," as he called it, in the Corner Room. I have 
always regarded Jack as the finest-looking sailor that ever sailed. 
He is grey now, but as handsome as he was a quarter of a century 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 221 

ago — nay, handsomer. A portly, cheery, well-built figure of a broad- 
shouldered man, with a frank smile, a brilliant dark eye, and a rich 
dark eyebrow. I remember those under darker hair, and they look 
all the better for their silver setting. He has been wherever his 
Union namesake flies, has Jack, and I have met old shipmates of 
his, away in the Mediterranean and on the other side of the Atlan- 
tic, who have beamed and brightened at the casual mention of his 
name, and have cried, " You know Jack Governor ? Then you know 
a prince of men ! " That he is ! And so unmistakably a naval offi- 
cer, that if you were to meet him coming out of an Esquimau 
snow-hut in seal's skin, you would be vaguely persuaded he was in 
full naval uniform. 

Jack once had that bright clear eye of his on my sister; but, it 
fell out that he married another lady and took her to South America, 
where she died. This was a dozen years ago or more. He brought 
down with him to our haunted house a little cask of salt beef; for, 
he is always convinced that all salt beef not of his own pickling is 
mere carrion, and invariably, when he goes to London, packs a piece 
in his portmanteau. He had also volunteered to bring with him 
one " Nat Beaver," an old comrade of his, captain of a merchant- 
man. Mr. Beaver, with a thick-set wooden face and figure, and 
apparently as hard as a block all over, proved to be an intelligent 
man, with a world of watery experiences in him, and great practical 
knowledge. At times, there was a curious nervousness about him, 
apparently the lingering result of some old illness ; but, it seldom 
lasted many minutes. He got the Cupboard Room, and lay there 
next to Mr. Undery, my friend and solicitor : who came down, in 
an amateur capacity, " to go through with it," as he said, and who 
plays whist better than the whole Law List, from the red cover at 
the beginning to the red cover at the end. 

I never was happier in my life, and I believe it was the univer- 
sal feeling among us. Jack Governor, always a man of wonderful 
resources, was Chief Cook, and made some of the best dishes I 
ever ate, including unapproachable curries. My sister was pas- 
try-cook and confectioner. Starling and I were Cook's Mate, 
turn and turn about, and on special occasions the chief cook 
" pressed " Mr. Beaver. We had a great deal of out-door sport 
and exercise, but nothing was neglected within, and there was no 
ill-humour or misunderstanding among us, and our evenings were 
so delightful that we had at least one good reason for being reluc- 
tant to go to bed. 

We had a few night alarms in the beginning. On the first 
night, I was knocked up by Jack with a most wonderful ship's 
lantern in his hand, like the gills of some monster of the deep, 



222 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

who informed me that he "was going aloft to the main truck," 
to have the weathercock down. It was a stormy night and I 
remonstrated ; but Jack called my attention to its making a sound 
like a cry of despair, and said somebody would be "hailing a 
ghost" presently, if it wasn't done. So, up to the top of the 
house, where I could hardly stand for the wind, we went, accom- 
panied by Mr. Beaver ; and there Jack, lantern and all, with Mr. 
Beaver after him, swarmed up to the top of a cupola, some two 
dozen feet above the chimneys, and stood upon nothing particular, 
coolly knocking the weathercock off, until they both got into such 
good spirits with the wind and the height, that I thought they 
would never come down. Another night, they turned out again, 
and had a chimney-cowl off. Another night, they cut a sobbing 
and gulping water-pipe away. Another night, they found out 
something else. On several occasions, they both, in the coolest 
manner, simultaneously dropped out of their respective bedroom 
windows, hand over hand by their counterpanes, to "overhaul" 
something mysterious in the garden. 

The engagement among us was faithfully kept, and nobody 
revealed anything. All we knew was, if any one's room were 
haunted, no one looked the worse for it. 



Chapter II. 

THE GHOST IN MASTER B.'s ROOM. 

When I established myself in the triangular garret which had 
gained so distinguished a reputation, my thoughts naturally turned 
to Master B. My speculations about him were uneasy and mani- 
fold. Whether his Christian name was Benjamin, Bissextile (from 
his having been born in Leap Year), Bartholomew, or Bill. 
Whether the initial letter belonged to his family name, and that 
was Baxter, Black, Brown, Barker, Buggius, Baker, or Bird. 
Whether he was a foundling, and had been baptized B. Whether 
he was a lion-hearted boy, and B. was short for Briton, or for Bull. 
Whether he could possibly have been kith and kin to an illustrious 
lady who brightened my own childhood, and had come of the blood 
of the brilliant Mother Bunch ? 

With these profitless meditations I tormented myself much. I 
also carried the mysterious letter into the appearance and pursuits 
of the deceased ; wondering whether he dressed in Blue, wore Boots 
(he couldn't have been Bald), was a boy of Brains, liked Books, 
was good at Bowling, had any skill as a Boxer, even in his Buoy- 



I 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 223 

ant Boyhood Bathed from a Bathing-machine at Bognor, Bangor, 
Bournemouth, Brighton, or Broadstairs, like a Bounding Billiard 
Ball? 

So, from the first, I was haunted by the letter B. 

It was not long before I remarked that I never by any hazard 
had a dream of Master B., or of anything belonging to him. But, 
the instant I awoke from sleep, at whatever hour of the night, my 
thoughts took him up, and roamed away, trying to attach his 
initial letter to something that would fit it and keep it quiet. 

For six nights, I had been worried thus in Master B.'s room, 
when I began to perceive that tjiings were going wrong. 

The first appearance that presented itself was early in the morn- 
ing, when it was but just daylight and no more. I was standing 
shaving at my glass, when I suddenly discovered, to my consterna- 
tion and amazement, that I was shaving — not myself — I am 
fifty — but a boy. Apparently Master B. ! 

I trembled and looked over my shoulder; nothing there. I 
looked again in the glass, and distinctly saw the features and 
expression of a boy, who was shaving, not to get rid of a beard, 
but to get one. Extremely troubled in my mind, I took a few 
turns in the room, and went back to the looking-glass, resolved to 
steady my hand and complete the operation in which I had been 
disturbed. Opening my eyes, which I had shut while recovering 
my firmness, I now met in the glass, looking straight at me, the 
eyes of a young man of four or five and twenty. Terrified by this 
new ghost, I closed my eyes, and made a strong eftbrt to recover 
myself. Opening them again, I saw, shaving his cheek in the 
glass, my father, who has long been dead. Nay, I even saw my 
grandfather too, whom I never did see in my life. 

Although naturally much affected by these remarkable visita- 
tions, I determined to keep my secret, until the time agreed upon 
for the present general disclosure. Agitated by a multitude of 
curious thoughts, I retired to my room, that night, prepared to 
encounter some new experience of a spectral character. Nor was 
my preparation needless, for, waking from an uneasy sleep at 
exactly two o'clock in the morning, what were my feelings to find 
that I was sharing my bed with the skeleton of Master B. ! 

I sprang up, and the skeleton sprang up also. I then heard a 
plaintive voice saying, " Where am I ? What is become of me ? " 
and, looking hard in that direction, perceived the ghost of 
Master B. 

The young spectre was dressed in an obsolete fashion : or rather, 
was not so much dressed as put into a case of inferior pepper-and- 
salt cloth, made horrible by means of shining buttons. I observed 



224 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

that these buttons went, in a double row, over each shoulder of 
the young ghost, and appeared to descend his back. He wore a 
frill round his neck. His right hand (which I distinctly noticed 
to be inky) was laid upon his stomach ; connecting this action 
with some feeble pimples on his countenance, and his general air 
of nausea, I concluded this ghost to be the ghost of a boy who had 
habitually taken a great deal too much medicine. 

" Where am I ? " said the little spectre, in a pathetic voice. 
"And why was I born in the Calomel days, and why did I have 
all that Calomel given me 1 

I replied, with sincere earnestness, that upon my soul I couldn't 
tell him. 

"Where is my little sister," said the ghost, "and where my 
angelic little wife, and where is the boy I went to school with 1 " 

I entreated the phantom to be comforted, and above all things 
to take heart respecting the loss of the boy he went to school with. 
I represented to him that probably that boy never did, within 
human experience, come out well, when discovered. I urged that 
I myself had, in later life, turned up several boys whom I ,went to 
school with, and none of them had at all answered. I expressed 
my humble belief that that boy never did answer. I represented 
that he was a mythic character, a delusion, and a snare. I re- 
counted how, the last time I found him, I found him at a dinner 
party behind a wall of white cravat, with an inconclusive opinion 
on every jDossible subject, and a power of silent boredom absolutely 
Titanic. I related how, on the strength of our having been to- 
gether at "Old Doy lance's," he had asked himself to breakfast 
with me (a social offence of the largest magnitude) ; how, fanning 
my weak embers of belief in Doylance's boys, I had let him in ; 
and how, he had proved to be a fearful wanderer about the earth, 
pursuing the race of Adam with inexplicable notions concerning 
the currency, and with a proposition that the Bank of England 
should, on pain of being abolished, instantly strike off and circu- 
late, God knows how many thousand millions of ten-and-sixpenny 
notes. 

The ghost heard me in silence, and with a fixed stare. " Barber ! " 
it apostrophised me when I had finished. 

"Barber?" I repeated — for I am not of that profession. 

" Condemned," said the ghost, " to shave a constant change of 
customers — now, me — now, a young man — now, thyself -as thou 
art — now, thy father — now, thy grandfather; condemned, too, 
to lie down with a skeleton every night, and to rise with it every 
morning — " 

(I shuddered on hearing this dismal announcement.) 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 226 

" Barber ! Pursue me ! " 

I had felt, even before the words were uttered, that I was under 
a spell to pursue the phantom. I immediately did so, and was in 
Master B.'s room no longer. 

Most people know what long and fatiguing night journeys had 
been forced upon the witches who used to confess, and who, no 
doubt, told the exact truth — particularly as they were always 
assisted with leading questions, and the Torture was always ready. 
I asseverate that, during my occupation of Master B.'s room, I 
was taken by the ghost that haunted it, on expeditions fully as 
long and wild as any of those. Assuredly, I was presented to no 
shabby old man with a goat's horns and tail (something between 
Pan and an old-clothesman), holding conventional receptions, as 
stupid as those of real life and less decent ; but, I came upon other 
things which appeared to me to have more meaning. 

Confident that I speak the truth and shall be believed, I declare 
without hesitation that I followed the ghost, in the first instance 
on a broom-stick, and afterwards on a rocking-horse. The very 
smell of the animal's paint — especially when I brought it out, by 
making him warm — I am ready to swear to. I followed the 
ghost, afterwards, in a hackney coach ; an institution with the 
peculiar smell of which the present generation is unacquainted, 
but to which I am again ready to swear as a combination of stable, 
dog with the mange, and very old bellows. (In this, I appeal to 
previous generations to confirm or refute me.) I pursued the 
phantom, on a headless donkey : at least, upon a donkey who was 
so interested in the state of his stomach that his head was always 
down there, investigating it ; on ponies, expressly born to kick up 
behind ; on roundabouts and swings, from fairs ; in the first cab — 
another forgotten institution where the fare regularly got into bed, 
and was tucked up with the driver. 

Not to trouble you with a detailed account of all my travels in 
pursuit of the ghost of Master B., which were longer and more 
wonderful than those of Sinbad the Sailor, I will confine myself 
to one experience from which you may judge of many. 

I was marvellously changed. I was myself, yet not myself. I 
was conscious of something within me, which has been the same 
all through my life, and which I have always recognised under all 
its phases and varieties as never altering, and yet I was not the I 
who had gone to bed in Master B.'s room. I had the smoothest 
of faces and the shortest of legs, and I had taken another creature 
like myself, also with the smoothest of faces and the shortest of 
legs, behind a door, and was confiding to him a proposition of the 
most astounding nature. 



226 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

This proposition was, that we should have a Seraglii). 

The other creature assented warmly. He had no notion of 
respectability, neither had I. It was the custom of the East, it 
was the way of the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid (let me have 
the corrupted name again for once, it is so scented with sweet 
memories !), the usage was highly laudable, and most worthy of 
imitation. " 0, yes ! Let us," said the other creature with a 
jump, " have a Seraglio." 

It was not because we entertained the faintest doubts of the 
meritorious character of the Oriental establishment we proposed 
to import, that we perceived it must be kept a secret from Miss 
Griffin, It was because we knew Miss Griffin to be bereft of 
human sympathies, and incapable of appreciating the greatness of 
the great Haroun. Mystery impenetrably shrouded from Miss 
Griffin then, let us entrust it to Miss Bule. 

We were ten in Miss Griffin's establishment by Hampstead 
Ponds ; eight ladies and two gentlemen. Miss Bule, whom I 
judge to have attained the ripe age of eight or nine, took the lead 
in society. I opened the subject to her in the course of the day, 
and proposed that she should become the Favourite. 

Miss Bule, after struggling with the diffidence so natural to, and 
charming in, her adorable sex, expressed herself as flattered by the 
idea, but wished to know how it was proposed to provide for Miss 
Pipson ? Miss Bule — -who was understood to have vowed towards 
that young lady, a friendship, halves, and no secrets, until death, 
on the Church Service and Lessons complete in two volumes with 
case and lock — Miss Bule said she could not, as the friend of 
Pipson, disguise from herself, or me, that Pipson was not one of 
the common. 

Now, Miss Pipson, having curly light hair and blue eyes (which 
was my idea of anything mortal and feminine that was called Fair), 
I promptly replied that I regarded Miss Pipson in the light of a 
Fair Circassian. 

" And what then ? " Miss Bule pensively asked. 

I replied that she must be inveigled by a Merchant, brought to 
me veiled, and purchased as a slave. 

[The other creature had already fallen into the second male place 
in the State, and was set apart for Grand Yizier. He afterwards 
resisted this disposal of events, but had his hair pulled until he 
yielded.] 

" Shall I not be jealous 1 " Miss Bule inquired, casting down her 



" Zobeide, no," I replied ; " you will ever be the favourite Sultana ; 
the first place in my heart, and on my throne, will be ever yours." 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 227 

Miss Bule, upon that assurance, consented to propound the idea 
to her seven beautiful companions. It occurring to me, in the 
course of the same day, that we knew we could trust a grinning 
and good-natured soul called Tabby, who was the serving drudge 
of the house, and had no more figure than one of the beds, and 
upon whose face there was always more or less black-lead, I slipped 
into Miss Bule's hand after supper, a little note to that effect : 
dwelling on the black-lead as being in a manner deposited by the 
finger of Providence, pointing Tabby out for Mesrour, the celebrated 
chief of the Blacks of the Hareem. 

There were difficulties in the formation of the.,desired institution, 
as there are in all combinations. The other creature showed him- 
self of a low character, and, when defeated in aspiring to the throne, 
pretended to have conscientious scruples about prostrating himself 
before the Caliph ; wouldn't call him Commander of the Faithful ; 
spoke of him slightingly and inconsistently as a mere " chap ; " said 
he, the other creature, " wouldn't play " — Play ! — and was other- 
wise coarse and offensive. This meanness of disposition was, how- 
ever, put down by the general indignation of an united Seraglio, 
and I became blessed in the smiles of eight of the fairest of the 
daughters of men. 

The smiles could only be bestow^ed when Miss Griffin was look- 
ing another way, and only then in a very wary manner, for there 
was a legend among the followers of the Prophet that she saw with 
a little round ornament in the middle of the pattern on the back of 
her shawl. But every day after dinner, for an hour, we were all 
together, and then the Favourite and the rest of the Royal Hareem 
competed who should most beguile the leisure of the Serene Haroun 
reposing from the cares of State — which were generally, as in most 
affairs of State, of an arithmetical character, the Commander of the 
Faithful being a fearful boggier at a sum. 

On these occasions, the devoted Mesrour, chief of the Blacks of 
the Hareem, was always in attendance (Miss Griffin usually ringing 
for that officer, at the same time, with great vehemence), but never 
acquitted himself in a manner worthy of his historical reputation. 
In the first place, his bringing a broom into the Divan of the 
Caliph, even when Haroun wore on his shoulders the red robe of 
anger (Miss Pipson's pelisse), though it might be got over for the 
moment, was never to be quite satisfectorily accounted for. In the 
second place, his breaking out into grinning exclamations of " Lork 
you pretties ! " was neither Eastern nor respectful. In the third 
place, when specially instructed to say " Bismillah ! " he always said 
" Hallelujah ! " This officer, unlike his class, was too good-humoured 
altogether, kept his mouth open far too wide, expressed approbation 



228 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

to an incongruous extent, and even once — it was on the occasion 
of the purchase of the Fair Circassian for five hundred thousand 
purses of gold, and cheap, too — embraced the Slave, the Favourite, 
and the Caliph, all round. (Parenthetically let me say God bless 
Mesrour, and may there have been sons and daughters on that 
tender bosom, softening many a hard day since !) 

Miss Griffin was a model of propriety, and I am at a loss to 
imagine what the feelings of the virtuous woman would have been, 
if she had known, when she paraded us down the Hampstead-road 
two and two, that she was walking with a stately step at the head 
of Polygamy and Mahomedanism. I believe that a mysterious and 
terrible joy with which the contemplation of Miss Griffin, in this 
unconscious state, inspired us, and a grim sense prevalent among 
us that there was a dreadful power in our knowledge of what Miss 
Griffin (who knew all things that could be learnt out of book) 
didn't know, were the mainspring of the preservation of our secret. 
It was wonderfully kept, but was once upon the verge of self- 
betrayal. The danger and escape occurred upon a Sunday. We 
were all ten ranged in a conspicuous part of the gallery at church, 
with Miss Griffin at our head — as we were every Sunday — ad- 
vertising the establishment in an unsecular sort of way — when 
the description of Solomon in his domestic glory happened to be 
read. The moment that monarch was thus referred to, conscience 
whispered me, " Thou, too, Haroun ! " The officiating minister had 
a cast in his eye, and it assisted conscience by giving him the 
appearance of reading personally at me. A crimson blush, attended 
by a fearful perspiration, suffused my features. The Grand Vizier 
became more dead than alive, and the whole Seraglio reddened as 
if the sunset of Bagdad shone direct upon their lovely faces. At 
this portentous time the awful Griffin rose, and balefully surveyed 
the children of Islam. My own impression was, that Church and 
State had entered into a conspiracy with Miss Griffin to expose us, 
and that we should all be put into white sheets, and exhibited in the 
centre aisle. But, so Westerly — if I may be allowed the expres- 
sion as opposite to Eastern associations — was Miss Griffin's sense 
of rectitude, that she merely suspected Apples, and we were saved. 

I have called the Seraglio, united. Upon the question, solely, 
whether the Commander of the Faithful durst exercise a right of 
kissing in that sanctuary of the palace, were its peerless inmates 
divided. Zobeide asserted a counter-right in the Favourite to 
scratch, and the Fair Circassian put her face, for refuge, into a 
green baize bag, originally designed for books. On the other hand, 
a young antelope of transcendent beauty from the fruitful plains of 
Camden-town (whence she had been brought, by traders, in the 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 229 

half-yearly caravan that crossed the intermediate desert after the 
holidays) held more liberal opinions, but stipulated for limiting 
the benefit of them to that dog, and son of a dog, the Grand Vizier 
— who had no rights, and was not in question. At length, the 
difl&culty was compromised by the installation of a very youthful 
slave as Deputy. She, raised upon a stool, officially received upon 
her cheeks the salutes intended by the gracious Haroun for other 
Sultanas, and was privately rewarded from the coffers of the Ladies 
of the Hareem. 

And now it was, at the full height of enjoyment of my bliss, 
that I became heavily troubled. I began to think of my mother, 
and what she would say to my taking home af Midsummer eight 
of the most beautiful of the daughters of men, but all unexpected. 
I thought of the number of beds we made up at our house, of my 
father's income, and of the baker, and my despondency redoubled. 
The Seraglio and malicious Vizier, divining the cause of their Lord's 
unhappiness, did their utmost to augment it. They professed un- 
bounded fidelity, and declared that they would live and die with 
him. Reduced to the utmost wretchedness by these protestations 
of attachment, I lay awake, for hours at a time, ruminating on my 
frightful lot. In my despair, I think I might have taken an early 
opportunity of falling on my knees before Miss Griffin, avowing my 
resemblance to Solomon, and praying to be dealt with according to 
the outraged laws of my country, if an unthought-of means of escape 
had not opened before me. 

One day, we were out walking, two and two — on which occasion 
the Vizier had his usual instructions to take note of the boy at the 
turnpike, and if he profanely gazed (which he always did) at the 
beauties of the Hareem, to have him bowstrung in the course of 
the night — and it happened that our hearts were veiled in gloom. 
An unaccountable action on the part of the antelope had plunged 
the State into disgrace. That charmer, on the representation that 
the previous day was her birthday, and that vast treasures had 
been sent in a hamper for its celebration (both baseless assertions), 
had secretly but most pressingly invited thirty-five neighbouring 
princes and princesses to a ball and supper : with a special stipula- 
tion that they were "not to be fetched till twelve." This wander- 
ing of the antelope's fancy, led to the surprising arrival at Miss 
Griffin's door, in divers equipages and under various escorts, of a 
great company in full dress, who were deposited on the top step 
in a flush of high expectancy, and who were dismissed in tears. 
At the beginning of the double knocks attendant on these cere- 
monies, the antelope had retired to a back attic, and bolted herself 
in ; and at every new arrival, Miss Griffin had gone so much more 



230 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

and more distracted, that at last she had been seen to tear her 
front. Ultimate capitulation on the part of the offender, had been 
followed by solitude in the linen-closet, bread and water and a 
lecture to all, of vindictive length, in which Miss Griffin had used 
expressions: Firstly, "I believe you all of you knew of it;" 
Secondly, " Every one of you is as wicked as another ; " Thirdly, 
"A pack of little wretches." 

Under these circumstances, we were walking drearily along ; and 
I especially, with my Moosulmaun responsibilities heavy on me, was 
in a very low state of mind ; w^hen a strange man accosted Miss 
Griffin, and, after walking on at her side for a little while and 
talking with her, looked at me. Supposing him to be a minion of 
the law, and that my hour was come, I instantly ran away, with 
the general purpose of making for Egypt. 

The whole Seraglio cried out, when they saw me making off as 
fast as my legs would carry me (I had an impression that the first 
turning on the left, and round by the public-house, would be the 
shortest way to the Pyramids), Miss Griffin screamed after me, the 
faithless Vizier ran after me, and the boy at the turnpike dodged 
me into a corner, like a sheep, and cut me off. Nobody scolded 
me when I was taken and brought back ; Miss Griffin only said, 
with a stunning gentleness, This was very curious ! Why had I 
run away when the gentleman looked at me 1 

If I had had any breath to answer with, I dare say I should 
have made no answer ; having no breath, I certainly made none. 
Miss Griffin and the strange man took me between them, and 
walked me back to the palace in a sort of state ; but not at all (as 
I couldn't help feeling, with astonishment) in culprit state. 

When we got there, we went into a room by ourselves, and Miss 
Griffin called in to her assistance, Mesrour, chief of the dusky 
guards of the Hareem. Mesrour, on being whispered to, began to 
shed tears. 

" Bless you, my precious ! " said that officer, turning to me ; 
"your Pa's took bitter bad ! " 

I asked, with a fluttered heart, " Is he very ill 1 " 

" Lord temper the wind to you, my lamb ! " said the good 
Mesrour, kneeling dowTi, that I might have a comforting shoulder 
for my head to rest on, "your Pa's dead ! " 

Haroun Alraschid took to flight at the words ; the Seraglio 
vanished ; from that moment, I never again saw one of the eight 
of the fairest of the daughters of men. 

I was taken home, and there was Debt at home as well as Death, 
and we had a sale there. My own little bed was so superciliously 
looked upon by a Power unknown to me, hazily called " The Trade," 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 231 

that a brass coal-scuttle, a roasting-jack, and a birdcage, were obliged 
to be put into it to make a Lot of it, and then it went for a song. 
So I heard mentioned, and I wondered what song, and thought 
what a dismal song it must have been to sing ! 

Then, I was sent to a great, cold, bare school of big boys ; where 
everything to eat and wear was thick and clumpy, without being 
enough ; where everybody, large and small, was cruel ; where the 
boys knew all about the sale, before I got there, and asked me 
what I had fetched, and who had bought me, and hooted at me, 
" Going, going, gone ! " I never whispered in that wretched place 
that I had been Haroun, or had had a Seraglio : for, I knew that 
if I mentioned my reverses, I should be so worried, that I should 
have to drown myself in the muddy pond near the playground, 
which looked like the beer. 

Ah me, ah me ! No other ghost has haunted the boy's room, 
my friends, since I have occupied it, than the ghost of my own child- 
hood, the ghost of my own innocence, the ghost of my own airy belief. 
Many a time have I pursued the phantom : never with this man's 
stride of mine to come up with it, never with these man's hands of 
mine to touch it, never more to this man's heart of mine to hold it 
in its purity. And here you see me working out, as cheerfully and 
thankfully as I may, my doom of shaving in the glass a constant 
change of customers, and of lying down and rising up w;ith the 
skeleton allotted to me for my mortal companion. 



Chapter III. 

THE GHOST IN THE CORNER ROOM. 

I HAD observed Mr. Governor growing fidgety as his turn — 
his "spell," he called it — approached, and he now surprised us 
all, by rising with a serious countenance, and requesting permission 
to " come aft " and have speech with me, before he spun his yarn. 
His great popularity led to a gracious concession of this indulgence, 
and we went out together into the hall. 

"Old shipmate," said Mr. Governor to me, "ever since I have 
been abroad of this old hulk, I have been haunted day and night." 

" By what. Jack ? " 

Mr. Governor, clapping his hand on my shoulder and keeping it 
there, said : 

" By something in the likeness of a Woman." 

" Ah ! Your old affliction. You'll never get over that, Jack, if 
you live to be a hundred." 



232 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 

" No, don't talk so, because I am very serious. All night long, 
I have been haunted by one figure. All day, the same figure has 
so bewildered me in the kitchen, that I wonder I haven't poisoned 
the whole ship's company. Now, there's no fancy here. Would 
you like to see the figure?" 

" I should like to see it very much." 

" Then here it is ! " said Jack. Thereupon, he presented my 
sister, who had stolen out quietly, after us. 

" Oh, indeed ? " said I. " Then, I suppose, Patty, my dear, I 
have no occasion to ask whether you have been haunted ? " 

"Constantly, Joe," she replied. 

The effect of our going back again, all three together, and of my 
presenting my sister as the Ghost from the Corner Room, and 
Jack as the Ghost from my Sister's Room, was triumphant — the 
crowning hit of the night. Mr. Beaver was so particularly 
delighted, that he by-and-bye declared " a very little would make 
him dance a hornpipe." Mr. Governor immediately supplied the 
very little, by offering to make it a double hornpipe ; and there en- 
sued such toe-and-heeling, and buckle-covering, and double-shuffling, 
and heel-sliding, and execution of all sorts of slippery manoeuvres 
with vibratory legs, as none of us ever before, or will ever see again. 
When we had all laughed and applauded till we were faint. Star- 
ling, not be outdone, favoured us with a more modern saltatory 
entertainment in the Lancashire clog manner — to the best of my 
belief, the longest dance ever performed, in which the sound of his 
feet became a Locomotive going through cuttings, tunnels, and 
open country, and became a vast number of other things we should 
never have suspected, unless he had kindly told us what they were. 

It was resolved before we separated that night, that our three 
months' period in the Haunted House should be wound up with 
the marriage of my sister and Mr. Governor. Belinda was nomi- 
nated bridesmaid, and Starling was engaged for bridegroom's man. 

In a word, we lived our term out, most happily, and were never 
for a moment haunted by anything more disagreeable than our 
own imaginations and remembrances. My cousin's wife, in her 
great love for her husband and in her gratitude to him for the 
change her love had wrought in her, had told us, through his lips, 
her own story ; and I am sure there was not one of us who did not 
like her the better for it, and respect her the more. 

So, at last, before the shortest month in the year was quite out, 
we all walked forth one morning to the church with the spire, as 
if nothing uncommon were going to happen ; and there Jack and 
my sister were married, as sensibly as could be. It occurs to me 
to mention that I observed Belinda and Alfred Starling to be 



A MESSAGE EROM THE SEA. 233 

rather sentimental and low, on the occasion, and that they are 
since engaged to be married in the same church. I regard it as 
an excellent thing for both, and a kind of union very wholesome 
for the time in which we live. He wants a little poetry, and she 
wants a little prose, and the marriage of the two things is the 
happiest marriage I know for all mankind. 

Finally, I derived this Christmas Greeting from the Haunted 
House, which I affectionately address with all my heart to all my 
readers — Let us use the great virtue, Faith, but not abuse it ; 
and let us put it to its best use, by having faith in the great 
Christmas book of the New Testament, and in one another. 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

IN FIVE CHAPTERS. 

Chapter I. 

THE VILLAGE. 

" And a mighty sing'lar and pretty place it is, as ever I saw in 
all the days of my life ! " said Captain Jorgan, looking up at it. 

Captain Jorgan had to look high to look at it, for the village 
was built sheer up the face of a steep and lofty cliff. There was 
no road in it, there was no wheeled vehicle in it, there was not a 
level yard in it. From the sea-beach to tlie cliff-top two irregular 
rows of white houses, placed opposite to one another, and twisting 
here and there, and there and here, rose, like the sides of a long 
succession of stages of crooked ladders, and you climbed up the 
village or climbed down the village by the staves between, some 
six feet wide or so, and made of sharp irregular stones. The old 
pack-saddle, long laid aside in most parts of England as one of the 
appendages of its infancy, flourished here intact. Strings of pack- 
horses and pack-donkeys toiled slowly up the staves of the ladders, 
bearing fish, and coal, and such other cargo as was unshipping at 
the pier from the dancing fleet of village boats, and from two or 
three little coasting traders. As the beasts of burden ascended 
laden, or descended light, they got so lost at intervals in the 
floating clouds of village smoke, that they seemed to dive down 
some of the village chimneys, and come to the surface again far 
off, high above others. No two houses in the village were alike, 
in chimney, size, shape, door, window, gable, roof-tree, anything. 
The sides of the ladders were musical with water, nmning clear 



234 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

and bright. The staves were musical with the clattering feet of 
the pack-horses and pack-donkeys, and the voices of the fisher- 
men urging them up, mingled with the voices of the fishermen's 
wives and^their many children. The pier was musical with the 
wash of the sea, the creaking of capstans and windlasses, and the 
airy fluttering of little vanes and sails. The rough, sea-bleached 
boulders of which the pier was made, and the whiter boulders 
of the shore, were brown with drying nets. The red-brown cliffs, 
richly wooded to their extremest verge, had their softened and 
beautiful forms reflected in the bluest water, under the clear 
•North Devonshire sky of a November day without a cloud. The 
village itself was so steeped in autumnal foliage, from the houses 
lying on the pier to the topmost round of the topmost ladder, that 
one "might have fancied it was out a bird's-nesting, and was (as 
indeed it was) a wonderful climber. And mentioning birds, the 
place was not without some music from them too ; for the rook 
was very busy on the higher levels, and the gull with his flapping 
wings was fishing in the bay, and the lusty little robin was hop- 
ping among the great stone blocks and iron rings of the break- 
wat'er, fearfess in the faith of his ancestors, and the Children in 
the Wood. 

Thus it came to pass that Captain Jorgan, sittmg balancmg 
himself on the pier-wall, struck his leg with his open hand, as 
some men do when they are pleased — and as he always did when 
he was pleased — and said, — 

" A mighty sing'lar and pretty place it is, as ever I saw m all 
the days of my life ! " 

Captain Jorgan had not been through the village, but had come 
down to the pier by a winding side-road, to have a preliminary 
look at it from the level of his own natural element. He had 
seen many things and places, and had stowed them all away in a 
shrewd intellect and a vigorous memory. He was an American 
born, was Captain Jorgan, — a New-Englander, — but he was a 
citizen of the world, and a combination of most of the best quali- 
ties of most of its best countries. 

For Captain Jorgan to sit anywhere in his long-skirted blue coat 
and blue trousers, without holding converse with everybody within 
speaking distance, was a sheer impossibility. So the captain fell 
to talking with the fishermen, and to asking them knowing ques- 
tions about the fishery, and the tides, and the currents, and the 
race of water off" that point yonder, and what you kept in your 
eye, and got into a line with what else when you ran into the lit- 
tle 'harbour; and other nautical profundities. Among the men 
who exchanged ideas with the captain was a young fellow, who 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 235 

exactly hit his fancy, — a young fisherman of two or three and 
twenty, in the rough sea-dress of his craft, with a brown face, 
dark curling hair, and bright, modest eyes under his Sou'wester 
hat, and with a frank, but simple and retiring manner, which the 
captain found uncommonly taking. " I'd bet a thousand dollars," 
said the captain to himself, " that your father was an honest man ! " 

" Might you be married now ? " asked the captain, when he had 
had some talk with this new acquaintance. 

" Not yet." 

" Going to be ? " said the captain. 

"I hope so." 

The captain's keen glance followed the slightest possible turn 
of the dark eye, and the slightest possible tilt of the Sou'wester 
hat. The captain then slapped both his legs, and said to him- 
self, — 

" Never knew such a good thing in all my life ! There's his 
sweetheart looking over the wall ! " 

There was a very pretty girl looking over the wall, from a little 
platform of cottage, vine, and fuchsia ; and she certainly did not 
look as if the presence of this young fisherman in the landscape 
made it any the less sunny and hopeful for her. 

Captain Jorgan, having doubled himself up to laugh with that 
hearty good-nature which is quite exultant in the innocent happi- 
ness of other people, had undoubled himself, and was going to 
start a new subject, when there appeared coming down the lower 
ladders of stones, a man whom he hailed as " Tom Pettifer, Ho ! " 
Tom Pettifer, Ho, responded with alacrity, and in speedy course 
descended on the pier. 

"Afraid of a sun-stroke in England in November, Tom, that you 
wear your tropical hat, strongly paid outside and paper-lined inside, 
here ? " said the captain, eyeing it. 

"It's as well to be on the safe side, sir," replied Tom. 

"Safe side!" repeated the captain, laughing. "You'd guard 
against a sun-stroke, with that old hat, in an Ice Pack. Wa'al ! 
What have you made out at the Post-office ? " 

" It is the Post-office, sir." 

" What's the Post-office ? " said the captain. 

" The name, sir. The name keeps the Post-office." 

"A coincidence ! " said the captain. " A lucky hit ! Show me 
where it is. Good-bye, shipmates, for the present ! I shall come 
and have another look at you, afore I leave, this afternoon." 

This was addressed to all there, but especially the young fisher- 
man ; so all there acknowledged it, but especially the young fisher- 
man. "ZTe's a sailor !" said one to another, as they looked after 



236 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

the captain moving away. That he was ; and so outspeaking was 
the sailor in him, that although his dress had nothing nautical 
about it, with the single exception of its colour, but was a suit of 
a shore-going shape and form, too long in the sleeves and too short 
in the legs, and too unaccommodating everywhere, terminating 
earthward in a pair of Wellington boots, and surmounted by a 
tall, stiff hat, which no mortal could have worn at sea in any wind 
under heaven ; nevertheless, a glimpse of his sagacious, weather- 
beaten face, or his strong, brown hand, would have established the 
captain's calling. Whereas Mr. Pettifer — a man of a certain 
plump neatness, with a curly whisker, and elaborately nautical in a 
jacket, and shoes, and all things correspondent — looked no more 
like a seaman, beside Captain Jorgan, than he looked like a sea- 
serpent. 

The two climbed high up the village, — which had the most 
arbitrary turns and twists in it, so that the cobbler's house came 
dead across the ladder, and to have held a reasonable course, you 
must have gone through his house, and through him too, as he sat 
at his work between two little windows, with one eye microscopi- 
cally on the geological formation of that part of Devonshire, and 
the other telescopically on the open sea, — the two climbed high 
up the village, and stopped before a quaint little house, on which 
was painted, "Mrs. Raybrock, Draper;" and also "Post- 
office." Before it, ran a rill of murmuring water, and access to 
it was gained by a little plank-bridge. 

"Here's the name," said Captain Jorgan, "sure enough. You 
can come in if you like, Tom." 

The captain opened the door, and passed into an odd little shop, 
about six feet high, with a great variety of beams and bumps in 
the ceiling, and, besides the principal window giving on the ladder 
of stones, a purblind little window of a single pane of glass, peep- 
ing out of an abutting corner at the sun-lighted ocean, and winking 
at its brightness. 

" How do you do, ma'am ? " said the captain. " I am very glad 
to see you. I have come a long way to see you." 

'■''Have you, sir? Then I am sure I am very glad to see you^ 
though I don't know you from Adam." 

Thus a comely elderly woman, short of stature, plump of form, 
sparkling and dark of eye, who, perfectly clean and neat herself, 
stood in the midst of her perfectly clean and neat arrangements, 
and surveyed Captain Jorgan with smiling curiosity. "Ah! but 
you are a sailor, sir," she added, almost immediately, and with a 
slight movement of her hands, that was not very unlike wringing 
them ; " then you are heartily welcome." 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 237 

"Thank'ee, ma'am," said the captain, "I don't know what it is, 
I am sure, that brings out the salt in me, but everybody seems to 
see it on the crown of my hat and the collar of my coat. Yes, 
ma'am, I am in that way of life." 

" And the other gentleman, too," said Mrs. Raybrock. 

" Well now, ma'am," said the captain, glancing shrewdly at the 
other gentleman, "you are that nigh right, that he goes to sea, — 
if that makes him a sailor. This is my steward, ma'am, Tom Pet- 
tifer; he's been a'most all trades you could name, in the course of 
his life, — would have bought all your chairs and tables once, if 
you had wished to sell 'em, — but now he's, my steward. My 
name's Jorgan, and I'm a ship-owner, and I sail my own and 
my partners' ships, and have done so this five-and-twenty year. 
According to custom I am called Captain Jorgan, but I am no 
more a captain, bless your heart ! than you are." 

" Perhaps you'll come into my parlour, sir, and take a chair 1 " 
said Mrs. Raybrock. 

" Ex-actly what I was going to propose myself, ma'am. After 
you." 

Thus replying, and enjoining Tom to give an eye to the shop, 
Captain Jorgan followed Mrs. Raybrock into the little, low back- 
room, — decorated with divers plants in pots, tea-trays, old china 
teapots, and punch-bowls, — which was at once the private sitting- 
room of the Raybrock family and the inner cabinet of the Post- 
office of the village of Steepways. 

"Now, ma'am," said the captain, "it don't signify a cent to you 
where I was born, except — " But here the shadow of some one 
entering fell upon the captain's figure, and he broke off to double 
himself up, slap both his legs, and ejaculate, " Never knew such a 
thing in all my life ! Here he is again ! How are you 1 " 

These words referred to the young fellow who had so taken Cap- 
tain Jorgan's fancy down at the pier. To make it all quite com- 
plete he came in accompanied by the sweetheart whom the captain 
had detected looking over the wall. A prettier sweetheart the 
sun could not have shone upon that shining day. As she stood 
before the captain, with her rosy lips just parted in surprise, her 
brown eyes a little wider open than was usual from the same 
cause, and her breathing a little quickened by the ascent (and pos- 
sibly by some mysterious hurry and flurry at the parlour door, in 
which the captain had observed her face to be for a moment 
totally eclipsed by the Sou'wester hat), she looked so charming, 
that the captain felt himself under a moral obligation to slap both 
his legs again. She was very simply dressed, with no other orna- 
ment than an autumnal flower in her bosom. She wore neither 



238 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

hat nor bonnet, but merely a scarf or kerchief, folded squarely 
back over the head, to keep the sun off, — according to a fashion 
that may be sometimes seen in the more genial parts of England 
as well as of Italy, and which is probably the fii'st fashion of 
head-dress that came into the world when grasses and leaves went 
out. 

" In my country," said the captain, rising to give her his chair, 
and dexterously sliding it close to another chair on which the young 
fisherman must necessarily establish himself, — "in my country we 
should call Devonshire beauty fii^st-rate." 

Whenever a frank manner is offensive, it is because it is strained 
or feigned ; for there may be quite as much intolerable affectation 
in plainness as in mincing nicety. All that the captain said and did 
was honestly according to his nature; and his nature was open 
nature and good nature ; therefore, when he paid this little compli- 
ment, and expressed with a sparkle or two of his kno^ving eye, " I 
see how it is, and nothing could be better," he had established a 
delicate confidence on that subject with the family. 

" I was saying to your worthy mother," said the captain to the 
young man, after again introducing himself by name and occupation, 
— "I was saying to your mother (and you're very like her) that it 
didn't signify where I was born, except that I was raised on ques- 
tion-asking ground, where the babies as soon as ever they come into 
the world, inquire of their mothers, ' Neow, how old may you be, 
and wa'at air you a goin' to name me?' — which is a fact." Here 
he slapped his leg. " Such being the case, I may be excused for 
asking you if your name's Alfred 1 " 

" Yes, sir, my name is Alfred," returned the young man, 

"I am not a conjurer," pursued the captain, "and don't think | 
me so, or I shall right soon undeceive you. Likewise don't think, 
if you please, though I do come from that country of the babies, that , 
I am asking questions for question-asking's sake, for I am not. 
Somebody belonging to you went to sea 1 " 

" My elder brother, Hugh," returned the young man. He saic 
it in an altered and lower voice, and glanced at his mother, wh( 
raised her hands hurriedly, and put them together across her blacl 
gown, and looked eagerly at the visitor. 

"No ! For God's sake, don't think that !" said the captain, in 
a solemn way ; " I bring no good tidings of him." 

There was a silence, and the mother turned her face to the fire 
and put her hand between it and her eyes. The young fisherman 
slightly motioned toward the window, and the captain, looking in 
that direction, saw a young widow, sitting at a neighbouring 
window across a . little garden, engaged in needlework, with a 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 239 

young child sleeping on her bosom. The silence continued until 
the captain asked of Alfred, — 

" How long is it since it happened ? " 

" He shipped for his last voyage better than three years ago." 

"Ship struck upon some reef or rock, as I take it," said the 
captain, "and all hands lost?" 

"Yes." 

"Wa'al!" said the captain, after a shorter silence, "Here I 
sit who may come to the same end, like enough. He holds 
the seas in the hollow of His hand. We must all strike some- 
where and go down. Our comfort, then, for , ourselves and one 
another is to have done our duty. I'd wager your brother did 
his ! " 

"He did!" answered the young fisherman. "If ever man 
strove faithfully on all occasions to do his duty, my brother did. 
My brother was not a quick man (anything but that), but he was 
a faithful, true, and just man. We were the sons of only a small 
tradesman in this county, sir ; yet our father was as watchful of 
his good name as if he had been a king." 

"A precious sight more so, I hope, — bearing in mind the 
general run of that class of crittur," said the captain. "But I 
interrupt." 

" My brother considered that our father left the good name to 
us, to keep clear and true." 

"Your brother considered right," said the captain; "and you 
couldn't take care of a better legacy. But again I interrupt." 

" No ; for I have nothing more to say. We know that Hugh 
lived well for the good name, and we feel certain that he died well 
for the good name. And now it has come into my keeping. And 
that's all." 

"Well spoken ! " cried the captain. "Well spoken, young man ! 
Concerning the manner of your brother's death," — by this time 
the captain had released the hand he had shaken, and sat with his 
own broad, brown hands spread out on his knees, and spoke aside, 
— " concerning the manner of your brother's death, it may be that 
I have some information to give you ; though it may not be, for 
I am far from sure. Can we have a little talk alone ? " 

The young man rose; but not before the captain's quick eye 
had noticed that, on the pretty sweetheart's turning to the window 
to greet the young widow with a nod and a wave of the hand, the 
young widow had held up to her the needlework on which she 
was engaged, with a patient and pleasant smile. So the captain 
said, being on his legs, — 

" What might she be making now ? " 



240 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

"What is Margaret making, Kitty?" asked the young fisher- 
man, — with one of his arms apparently mislaid somewhere. 

As Kitty only blushed in reply, the captain doubled himself 
up as far as he could, standing, and said, with a slap of his leg, — 

" In my country we should call it wedding-clothes. Fact ! 
We should, I do assure you." 

But it seemed to strike the captain in another light too ; for his 
laugh was not a long one, and he added, in quite a gentle tone, — 

" And it's very pretty, my dear, to see her — poor young thing, 
with her fatherless child upon her bosom — giving up her thoughts 
to your home and your happiness. It's very pretty, my dear, and 
it's very good. May your marriage be more prosperous than hers, 
and be a comfort to her too. May the blessed sun see you all 
happy together, in possession of the good name, long after I have 
done ploughing the great salt field that is never sown ! " 

Kitty answered very earnestly, " ! Thank you, sir, with all my 
heart ! " And, in her loving little way, kissed her hand to him, 
and possibly by implication to the young fisherman, too, as the lat- 
ter held the parlour-door open for the captain to pass out. 



Chapter II. 

THE MONEY. 

"The stairs are very narrow, sir," said Alfred Raybrock to 
Captain Jorgan. 

"Like my cabin-stairs," returned the captain, "on many a 
voyage." 

"And they are rather inconvenient for the head." 

" If my head can't take care of itself by this time, after all the 
knocking about the world it has had," replied the captain, as uncon- 
cernedly as if he had no connection with it, "it's not worth look- 
ing after." 

Thus they came into the young fisherman's bedroom, which was 
as perfectly neat and clean as the shop and parlour below ; though 
it was but a little place, with a sliding window, and a phrenologi- 
cal ceiling expressive of all the peculiarities of the house-roof. Here 
the captain sat down on the foot of the bed, and glancing at a 
dreadful libel on Kitty which ornamented the wall, — the produc- 
tion of some wandering limner, whom the captain secretly admired 
as having studied portraiture from the figure-heads of ships, — 
motioned to the young man to take the rush-chair on the other 
side of the small, round table. That done, the captain put his hand 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 241 

in the deep breast-pocket of his long-skirted blue coat, and took out 
of it a strong square case -bottle, — not a large bottle, but such as 
may be seen in any ordinary ship's medicine-chest. Setting this 
bottle on the table without removing his hand from it, Captain 
Jorgan then spake as follows : 

" In my last voyage homeward-bound," said the captain, " and 
that's the voyage off of which I now come straight, I encountered 
such weather off the Horn as is not very often met with, even there. 
I have rounded that stormy Cape pretty often, and I believe I first 
beat about there in the identical storms that blew the Devil's horns 
and tail off, and led to the horns being worked'up into tooth-picks 
for the plantation overseers in my country, who may be seen (if you 
travel down South, or away West, fur enough) picking their teeth 
with 'em, while the whips, made of the tail, flog hard. In this last 
voyage, homeward-bound for Liverpool from South America, I say 
to you, my young friend, it blew. Whole measures ! No half 
measures, nor making believe to blow ; it blew ! Now I warn't 
blown clean out of the water into the sky, — though I expected to 
be even that, — but I was blown clean out of my course ; and when 
at last it fell calm, it fell dead calm, and a strong current set one 
way, day and night, night and day, and I drifted — drifted — 
drifted — out of all the ordinary tracks and courses of ships, and 
drifted yet, and yet drifted. It behooves a man who takes charge 
of fellow-critturs' lives, never to rest from making himself master 
of his calling. I never did rest, and consequently I knew pretty 
well ('specially looking over the side in the dead calm of that strong 
current) what dangers to expect, and what precautions to take 
against 'em. In short, we were driving head on to an island. 
There was no island in the chart, and, therefore, you may say it 
was ill-manners in the island to be there ; I don't dispute its bad 
breeding, but there it was. Thanks be to Heaven, I was as ready 
for the island as the island was ready for me. I made it out myself 
from the masthead, and I got enough way upon her in good time to 
keep her off. I ordered a boat to be lowered and manned, and 
went in that boat myself to explore the island. There was a reef 
outside it, and, floating in a corner of the smooth water within the 
reef, was a heap of sea-weed, and entangled in that sea-weed was 
this bottle." 

Here the captain took his hand from the bottle for a moment, 
that the young fisherman might direct a wondering glance at it ; 
and then replaced his hand and went on : 

"If ever you come — or even if ever you don't come -^ to a 
desert place, use you your eyes and your spy-glass well ; for the 
smallest thing you see may prove of use to you, and may have 



242 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

some information or some warning in it. That's the principle on 
which I came to see this bottle. I picked up the bottle and ran 
the boat alongside the island, and made fast and went ashore armed, 
with a part of my boat's crew. We found that every scrap of vege- 
tation on the island (I give it you as my opinion, but scant and 
scrubby at the best of times) had been consumed by fire. As we 
were making our way, cautiously and toilsomely, over the pulver- 
ised embers, one of my people sank into the earth breast-high. He 
turned pale, and "Haul me out smart, shipmates," says he, "for 
my feet are among bones." We soon got him on his legs again, 
and then we dug up the spot, and we found that the man was right, 
and that his feet had been among bones. More than that, they 
were human bones ; though whether the remains of one man, or 
of two or three men, what with calcination and ashes, and what 
with a poor practical knowledge of anatomy, I can't undertake to 
say. We examined the whole island and made out nothing else, 
save and except that, from its opposite side, I sighted a considera- 
ble tract of land, which land I was able to identify, and according 
to the bearings of which (not to trouble you mth my log) I took 
a fresh departure. When I got aboard again I opened the bottle, 
which was oilskin-covered as you see, and glass-stoppered as you 
see. Inside of it," pursued the captain, suiting his action to his 
words, "I found this little crumpled, folded paper, just as you see. 
Outside of it was written, as you see, these words : ' Whoeve7^ finds 
this, is solemnly entreated hy the dead to convey it unread to Al- 
fred Rayhrock^ Steepways, North Devon, England.^ A sacred 
charge," said the captain, concluding his narrative, " and, Alfred 
Raybrock, there it is ! " 

" This is my poor brother's writing ! " 

"I suppose so," said Captain Jorgan. "I'll take a look out of 
this little window while you read it." 

" Pray ho, sir ! I should be hurt. My brother couldn't know 
it would fall into such hands as yours." 

The captain sat down again on the foot of the bed, and the 
young man opened the folded paper with a trembling hand, and 
spread it on the table. The ragged paper, evidently creased and 
torn both before and after being written on, was much blotted 
and stained, and the ink had faded and run, and many words were 
wanting. What the captain and the young fisherman made out 
together, after much re-reading and much humouring of the folds of 
the paper, is given on the next page. 

The young fisherman had become more and more agitated, as the 
writing had become clearer to him. He now left it lying before the 
captain, over whose shoulder he had been reading it, and dropping 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 



243 



into his former seat, leaned forward on the table and laid his face 
in his hands. 

"What, man," urged the captain, "don't give in ! Be up and 
doing like a man ! " 

"It is selfish, I know, — but doing what, doing what?" cried 
the young fisherman, in complete despair, and stamping his sea- 
boot on the ground. 

" Doing what ? " returned the captain. " Something ! I'd go 
down to the little breakwater below yonder, and take a wrench at 
one of the salt-rusted iron rings there, and either wrench it up by 




the roots or wrench my teeth out of my head, sooner than I'd do 
nothing Nothing ! " ejaculated the captain. "Any fool or faint- 
ing heart can do that, and nothing can come of nothing, — which 
was pretended to be found out, I believe, by one of them Latin crit- 
turs," said the captain with the deepest disdain ; " as if Adam hadn't 
found it out, afore ever he so much as named the beasts ! " 

Yet the captain saw, in spite of his bold words, that there was 
some greater reason than he yet understood for the young man's 
distress. And he eyed him with a sympathising curiosity. 

"Come, come!" continued the captain. "Speak out. What 
is it, boy ! " 



244 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA 

"You have seen how beautiful she is, sir," said the young man, 
looking up for the moment, with a flushed face and rumpled hair. 

" Did any man ever say she warn't beautiful 1 " retorted the 
captain. "If so, go and lick him." 

The young man laughed fretfully in spite of himself, and said, 

"It's not that, it's not that." 

" Wa'al, then, what is it 1 " said the captain in a more soothmg 
tone. 

The young fisherman mournfully composed himself to tell the 
captain what it was, and began : " We were to have been married 
next Monday week — " 

" Were to have been ! " interrupted Captain Jorgan. " And are 
to be? Hey?" 

Young Raybrock shook his head, and traced out with his fore- 
finger the words, ^^poor father's Jive hundred pounds" in the 
written paper. 

" Go along," said the captain. " Five hundred pounds ? Yes ? " 

"That sum of money," pursued the young fisherman, entering 
with the greatest earnestness on his demonstration, while the 
captain eyed him with equal earnestness, " was all my late father 
possessed. When he died, he owed no man more than he left 
means to pay, but he had been able to lay by only five hundred 
pounds." 

" Five hundred pounds," repeated the captain. " Yes ? " 

" In his lifetime, years before, he had expressly laid the money 
aside to leave to my mother; — like to settle upon her, if I make 
myself understood." 

"Yes?" 

" He had risked it once — my father put down in writing at that 
time, respecting the money — and was resolved never to risk it 
again." 

" Not a spec'lator," said the captain. " My country wouldn't 
have suited him. Yes ? " 

" My mother has never touched the money till now. And now 
it was to have been laid out, this very next week, in buying me a 
handsome share in our neighbouring fishery here, to settle me in life 
with Kitty." 

The captain's face fell, and he passed and repassed his sun- 
browned right hand over his thin hair, in a discomfited manner. 

" Kitty's father has no more than enough to live on, even in the 
sparing way in which we live about here. He is a kind of bailiff 
or steward of manor rights here, and they are not much, and it is 
but a poor little ofiice. He was better off once, and Kitty must 
never marry to mere drudgery and hard living." 



A MESSAGE PROM THE SEA. 245 

The captain still sat stroking his thin hair, and looking at the 
young fisherman. 

" I am as certain that my father had no knowledge that any one 
was wronged as to this money, or that any restitution ought to be 
made, as I am certain that the sun now shines. But, after this 
solemn warning from my brother's grave in the sea, that the money 
is Stolen Money," said Young Raybrock, forcing himself to the 
utterance of the words, " can I doubt it ? Can I touch it ? " 

"About not doubting, I ain't so sure," observed the captain; 
"but about not touching — no — I don't thin^ you can." 

"See then," said Young Raybrock, "why I am so grieved. 
Think of Kitty. Think what I have got to tell her ! " 

His heart quite failed him again when he had come round 
to that, and he once more beat his sea-boot softly on the floor. 
But not for long ; he soon began again, in a quietly resolute 
tone. 

" However ! Enough of that ! You spoke some brave words 
to me just now, Captain Jorgan, and they shall not be spoken in 
vain. I have got to do something. What I have got to do, before 
all other things, is to trace out the meaning of this paper, for the 
sake of the Good Name that has no one else to put it right. And 
still for the sake of the Good Name, and my father's memory, not 
a word of this writing must be breathed to my mother, or to Kitty, 
or to any human creature. You agree in this ? " 

" I don't know what they'll think of us below," said the captain, 
" but for certain I can't oppose it. Now, as to tracing. How will 
you do ? " 

They both, as by consent, bent over the paper again, and again 
carefully puzzled out the whole of the writing. 

" I make out that this would stand, if all the writing was here, 
' Inquire among the old men living there, for ' — some one. Most 
like, you'll go to this village named here ? " said the captain, musing, 
with his finger on the name. 

" Yes ! And Mr. Tregarthen is a Cornishman, and — to be sure ! 
— comes from Lanrean." 

" Does he 1 " said the captain quietly. " As I ain't acquainted 
with him, who may he be ? " 

" Mr. Tregarthen is Kitty's father." 

" Ay, ay ! " cried the captain. " Now you speak ! Tregarthen 
knows this village of Lanrean, then?" 

" Beyond all doubt he does. I have often heard him mention it, 
as being his native place. He knows it well." 

"Stop half a moment," said the captain. "We want a name 
here. You could ask Tregarthen (or if you couldn't I could) what 



246 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

names of old men he remembers in his time in those diggings? 
Hey?" 

" I can go straight to his cottage, and ask him now." 

" Take me with you," said the captain, rising in a solid way that 
had a most comfortable reliability in it, " and just a word more first. 
I have knocked about harder than you, and have got along further 
than you. I have had, all my sea-going life long, to keep my wits 
polished bright with acid and friction, like the brass cases of the 
ship's instruments. I'll keep you company on this expedition. 
Now you don't live by talking any more than I do. Clench that 
hand of yours in this hand of mine, and that's a speech on both 
sides." 

Captain Jorgan took command of the expedition with that hearty 
shake. He at once refolded the paper exactly as before, replaced it 
in the bottle, put the stopper in, put the oilskin over the stopper, 
confided the whole to Young Raybrock's keeping, and led the way 
down-stairs. 

But it was harder navigation below-stairs than above. The 
instant they set foot in the parlour the quick, womanly eye de- 
tected that there was something wrong. Kitty exclaimed, fright- 
ened, as she ran to her lover's side, " Alfred ! What's the matter?" 
Mrs. Raybrock cried out to the captain, "Gracious! what have you 
done to my son to change him like this all in a minute ? " And the 
young widow — who was there with her work upon her arm — was 
at first so agitated that she frightened the little girl she held in 
her hand, who hid her face in her mother's skirts and screamed. 
The captain, conscious of being held responsible for this domestic 
change, contemplated it with quite a guilty expression of counte- 
nance, and looked to the young fisherman to come to his rescue. 

"Kitty, darling," said Young Raybrock, "Kitty, dearest love, I 
must go away to Lanrean, and I don't know where else or how 
much further, this very day. Worse than that — our marriage, 
Kitty, must be put off, and I don't know for how long." 

Kitty stared at him, in doubt and wonder and in anger, and 
pushed him from her with her hand. 

" Put off ? " cried Mrs. Raybrock. " The marriage put off ? And 
you going to Lanrean ! Why, in the name of the dear Lord ? " 

" Mother dear, I can't say why; I must not say why. It would 
be dishonourable and undutiful to say why." 

" Dishonourable and undutiful ? " returned the dame. " And is 
there nothing dishonourable or undutiful in the boy's breaking the 
heart of his own plighted love, and his mother's heart too, for the 
sake of the dark secrets and counsels of a wicked stranger ? Why 
did you ever come here ? " she apostrophised the innocent captain. 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 247 

" Who wanted you 1 Where did you come from ? Why couldn't 
you rest in your own bad place, wherever it is, instead of disturb- 
ing the peace of quiet unotfendiug folk like us ? " 

" And what," sobbed the poor little Kitty, "have I ever done to 
you, you hard and cruel captain, that you should come and serve 
me so?" 

And then they both began to weep most pitifully, while the cap- 
tain could only look from the one to the other, and lay hold of him- 
self by the coat collar. 

"Margaret," said the poor young fisherman, on his knees at 
Kitty's feet, while Kitty kept both her hands before her tearful 
face, to shut out the traitor from her view, — but kept her fingers 
wide asunder and looked at him all the time, — " Margaret, you 
have suffered so much, so uncomplainingly, and are always so careful 
and considerate ! Do take my part, for poor Hugh's sake ! " 

The quiet Margaret was not appealed to in vain. " I will, Alfred," 
she returned, " and I do. I wish this gentleman had never come 
near us ; " whereupon the captain laid hold of himself the tighter ; 
" but I take your part for all that. I am sure you have some 
strong reason and some sufficient reason for what you do, strange 
as it is, and even for not saying why you do it, strange as that is. 
And, Kitty darling, you are bound to think so more than any 
one, for true love believes everything, and bears everything, and 
trusts everything. And, mother dear, you are bound to think so 
too, for you know you have been blest with good sons, whose word 
was always as good as their oath, and who were brought up in as 
true a sense of honour as any gentleman in this land. And I am 
sure you have no more call, mother, to doubt your living sou than 
to doubt your dead son; and for the sake of the dear dead, I stand 
up for the dear living." 

" Wa'al now," the captain struck in, with enthusiasm, " this I 
say, That whether your opinions flatter me or not, you are a young 
woman of sense, and spirit, and feeling ; and I'd sooner have you 
by my side, in the hour of danger, than a good half of the men I've 
ever fallen in with — or fallen out with, ayther." 

Margaret did not return the captain's compliment, or appear fully 
to reciprocate his good opinion, but she applied herself to the conso- 
lation of Kitty, and of Kitty's mother-in-law that was to have been 
next Monday week, and soon restored the parlour to a quiet con- 
dition. 

" Kitty, my darling," said the young fisherman, " I must go to 
your father to entreat him still to trust me in spite of this wretched 
change and mystery, and to ask him for some directions concerning 
Lanrean. Will you come home ? Will you come with me, Kitty?" 



248 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

Kitty answered not a word, but rose sobbing, with the end of 
her simple head-dress at her eyes. Captain Jorgan followed the 
lovers out, quite sheepishly, pausing in the shojD to give an instruc- 
tion to Mr. Pettifer. 

" Here, Tom ! " said the captain, in a low voice. " Here's some- 
thing in your line. Here's an old lady poorly and low in her spirits. 
Cheer her up a bit, Tom. Cheer 'em all up." 

Mr. Pettifer, with a brisk nod of intelligence, immediately as- 
sumed his steward face, and went with his quiet, helpful, steward 
step into the parlour, where the captain had the great satisfaction 
of seeing him, through the glass door, take the child in his arms 
(who offered no objection), and bend over Mrs. Ray brock, adminis- 
tering soft words of consolation. 

" Though what he finds to say, unless he's telling her that 't'll 
soon be over, or that most people is so at first, or that it'll do her good 
afterward, I cannot imaginate ! " was the captain's reflection as he 
followed the lovers. 

He had not far to follow them, since it was but a short descent 
down the stony ways to the cottage of Kitty's father. But short 
as the distance was, it was long enough to enable the captain to ob- 
serve that he w^as fast becoming the village Ogre ; for there was not 
a woman standing working at her door, or a fisherman coming up 
or going down, who saw Young Raybrock unhappy and little Kitty 
in tears, but he or she instantly darted a suspicious and indignant 
glance at the captain, as the foreigner who must somehow be re- 
sponsible for this unusual spectacle. Consequently, when they came 
into Tregarthen's little garden, — which formed the platform from 
which the captain had seen Kitty peeping over the wall, — the 
captain brought to, and stood off and on at the gate, while Kitty 
hurried to hide her tears in her own room, and Alfred spoke with 
her father, who was working in the garden. He was a rather in- 
firm man, but could scarcely be called old yet, with an agreeable 
face and a promising air of making the best of things. The con- 
versation began on his side wdth great cheerfulness and good 
humour, but soon became distrustful, and soon angry. That w^as 
the captain's cue for striking both into the conversation and the 
garden. 

" Morning, sir ! " said Captain Jorgan. " How do you do 1 " 

" The gentleman I am going away with," said the young fisher- 
man to Tregarthen. 

" ! " returned Kitty's father, surveying the unfortunate captain 
with a look of extreme disfavour. " I confess that I can't say I am 
glad to see you." 

"No," said the captain, "and, to admit the truth, that seems to 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 249 

be the general opinion in these parts. But don't be hasty ; you 
may think better of me by-and-bye." 

" I hope so," observed Tregarthen. 

"Wa'al, / hope so," observed the captain, quite at his ease; 
"more than that, I believe so, — though you don't. Now, Mr. 
Tregarthen, you don't want to exchange words of mistrust with me ; 
and if you did, you couldn't, because I wouldn't. You and I are 
old enough to know better than to judge against experience from 
surfaces and appearances ; and if you haven't lived to find out the 
evil and injustice of such judgments, you are a lucky man." 

The other seemed to shrink under this remark, and replied, " Sir, 
I have lived to feel it deeply." 

" Wa'al," said the captain, mollified, " then I've made a good 
cast without knowing it. Now, Tregarthen, there stands the lover 
of your only child, and here stand I who know his secret. I war- 
rant it a righteous secret, and none of his making, though bound to 
be of his keeping. I want to help him out with it, and tewwards 
that end we ask you to favour us with the names of two or three 
old residents in the village of Lanrean. As I am taking out my 
pocket-book and pencil to put the names down, I may as well ob- 
serve to you that this, wrote atop of the first page here, is my name 
and address : ' Silas Jonas Jorgan, Salem, Massachusetts, United 
States.' If ever you take it in your head to run over any morning, 
I shall be glad to welcome you. Now, what may be the spelling of 
these said names 1 " 

"There was an elderly man," said Tregarthen, "named David 
Polreath. He may be dead." 

"Wa'al," said the captain, cheerfully, "if Polreath's dead and 
buried, and can be made of any service to us, Polreath won't object 
to our digging of him up. Polreath's down, anyhow." 

" There was another named Penrewen. I don't know his Chris- 
tian name." 

" Never mind bis Chris'en name," said the captain. " Penrewen, 
for short." 

" There was another named John Tredgear." 

"And a pleasant-sounding name, too," said the captain; "John 
Tredgear's booked." 

" I can recall no other except old Parvis." 

"One of old Parvis's fam'ly I reckon," said the captain, "kept a 
dry-goods store in New York city, and realised a handsome compe- 
tency by burning his house to ashes. Same name, anyhow. David Pol- 
reath, IFnchris'en Penrewen, John Tredgear, and old Arson Parvis." 

" I cannot recall any others at the moment." 

"Thank'ee," said the captain. "And so, Tregarthen, hoping 



250 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

for your good opinion yet, and likewise for the fair Devonshire 
Flower's, your daughter's, I give you my hand, sir, and wish you 
good day." 

Young Raybrock accompanied him disconsolately ; for there was 
no Kitty at the window when he looked up, no Kitty in the garden 
when he shut the gate, no Kitty gazing after them along the stony 
ways when they began to climb back. 

"Now I tell you what," said the captain. "Xot being at pres- 
ent calc'lated to promote harmony in your family, I won't come in. 
You go and get your dinner at home, and I'll get mine at the little 
hotel. Let our hour of meeting be two o'clock, and you'll find me 
smoking a cigar in the sun afore the hotel door. TeU Tom Pettifer, 
my steward, to consider himself on duty, and to look after your 
people till we come back ; you'll find he'll have made himself use- 
ful to 'em already, and will be quite acceptable." 

All was done as Captain Jorgan directed. Punctually at two 
o'clock the young fisherman appeared with his knapsack at his 
back ; and punctually at two o'clock the captain jerked away the 
last feather-end of his cigar. 

" Let me carry your baggage. Captain Jorgan ; I can easily take 
it with mine." 

" Thank'ee," said the captain. " I'll carry it myself. It's only 
a comb." 

They climbed out of the village, and paused among the trees 
and fern on the summit of the hill above, to take breath, and to 
look down at the beautiful sea. Suddenly the captain gave his leg 
a resounding slap, and cried, " Never knew such a right thing in 
all my life ! " — and ran away. 

The cause of this abrupt retirement on the part of the captain 
was little Kitty among the trees. The captain went out of sight 
and waited, and kept out of sight and waited, until it occurred to 
him to beguile the time with another cigar. He lighted it, and 
smoked it out, and still he was out of sight and waiting. He stole 
within sight at last, and saw the lovers, with their arms entwined 
and their bent heads touching, moving slowly among the trees. 
It was the golden time of the afternoon then, and the captain said 
to himself, "Golden sun, golden sea, golden sails, golden leaves, 
golden love, golden youth, — a golden state of things altogether ! " 

Nevertheless the captain found it necessary to hail his young 
companion before going out of sight again. In a few moments 
more he came up and they began their journey. 

"That still young woman with the fatherless child," said Cap- 
tain Jorgan, as they fell into step, " didn't throw her words away ; 
but good honest words are never thrown away. And now that I 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 251 

am conveying you off from that tender little thing that loves, and 
relies, and hopes, I feel just as if I was the snarling crittur in the 
picters, with the tight legs, the long nose, and the feather in his 
cap, the tips of whose moustaches get up nearer to his eyes the 
wickeder he gets." 

The young fisherman knew nothing of Mephistopheles ; but he 
smiled when the captain stopped to double himself up and slap his 
leg, and they went along in right goodfellowship. 



Chapter III. 

THE CLUB-NIGHT. 

A CoENiSH Moor, when the east wind drives over it, is as cold 
and rugged a scene as a traveller is likely to find in a year's travel. 
A Cornish Moor in the dark is as black a solitude as the traveller 
is likely to wish himself well out of, in the course of a life's wander- 
ings. A Cornish Moor in a night fog, is a wilderness where the 
traveller needs to know his way well, or the chances are very 
strong that his life and his wanderings will soon perplex him no 
more. 

Captain Jorgan and the young fisherman had faced the east 
and the south-east winds, from the first rising of the sun after their 
departure from the village of Steepways. Thrice had the sun 
risen, and still all day long had the sharp wind blown at them like 
some malevolent spirit bent on forcing them back. But, Captain 
Jorgan was too familiar with all the winds that blow, and too 
much accustomed to circumvent their slightest weaknesses and get 
the better of them in the long run, to be beaten by any member 
of the airy family. Taking the year round, it was his opinion that 
it mattered little what wind blew, or how hard it blew; so, he 
was as indifferent to the wind on this occasion as a man could be 
who frequently observed "that it freshened him up," and who re- 
garded it in the light of an old acquaintance. One might have 
supposed from his way, that there was even a kind of fraternal 
understanding between Captain Jorgan and the wind, as between 
two professed fighters often opposed to one another. The young 
fisherman, for his part, was accustomed within his narrower limits 
to hold hard weather cheap, and had his anxious object before 
him ; so, the wind went by him too, little heeded, and went upon 
its way to kiss Kitty. 

Their varied course had lain by the side of the sea where the 
brown rocks cleft it into fountains of spray, and inland where once 



252 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

barren moors were reclaimed and cultivated, and by lonely villages 
of poor-enough cabins with mud walls, and by a town or two with 
an old church and a market-place. But, always travelling through 
a sparely inhabited country and over a broad expanse, they had 
come at last upon the true Cornish Moor within reach of Lanrean. 
None but gaunt spectres of miners passed them here, with metallic 
masks of faces, ghastly with dust of copper and tin ; anon, solitary 
works on remote hill-tops, and bare machinery of torturing wheels 
and cogs and chains, writhing up hill-sides were the few scattered 
hints of human presence in the landscape ; during long intervals, 
the bitter wind, howling and tearing at them like a fierce wild, 
monster, had them all to itself. 

"A sing'lar thing it is," said the captain, looking round at th^ 
brown desert of rank grass and poor moss, " how like this airtl 
is, to the men that live upon it ! Here's a spot of country ricl 
with hidden metals, and it puts on the worst rags of clothes possi- 
ble, and crouches and shivers and makes believe to be so poor, that 
it can't so much as afford a feed for a beast. Just like a human 
miser, ain't it 1 " 

"But they find the miser out," returned the young fisherman, 
pointing to where the earth by the watercourses and along the 
valleys was turned up, for miles, in trying for metal. 

"Ay, they find him out," said the captain; "but he makes a 
struggle of it even then, and holds back all he can. He's a 'cute 
'un." 

The gloom of evening was already gathering on the dreary scene, 
and they were, at the shortest and best, a dozen miles from their 
destination. But, the captain, in his long-skirted blue coat and 
his boots and his hat and his square shirt-collar, and without any 
extra defence against the weather, walked coolly along with his 
hands in his pockets : as if he lived underground somewhere hard 
by, and had just come up to show his friend the road. 

" I'd have liked to have had a look at this place too," said the 
captain. " When there was a monstrous sweep of water rolling 
over it, dragging the powerful great stones along and piling 'em 
atop of one another, and depositing the foundations for all manner 
of superstitions. Bless you ! the old priests, smart mechanical 
critturs as they were, never piled up many of these stones. Water's 
the lever that moved 'em. When you see 'em thick and blunt 
tewwards one point of the compass, and fined away thin tewwards 
the opposite point, you may be as good as moral sure that the 
name of the ancient Druid that fixed 'em was Water." 

The captain referred to some great blocks of stone presenting 
this characteristic, which were wonderfully balanced and heaped 



A MESSAGE PEOM THE SEA. 253 

on one another, on a desolate hill. Looking back at these, as they 
stood out against the lurid glare of the west, just then expiring, 
they were not unlike enormous antediluvian birds, that had perched 
there on crags and peaks, and had been petrified there. 

" But it's an interesting country," said the captain, — "fact ! It's 
old in the annals of that said old Arch Druid, Water, and it's 
old in the annals of the said old parson-critturs too. It's a mighty 
interesting thing to set your boot (as I did this day) on a rough 
honey-combed old stone, with just nothing you can name but 
weather visible upon it : which the scholars that go about with 
hammers, chipping pieces off" the universal airth, find to be an in- 
scription, entreating prayers for the soul of some for-ages-bust-up 
crittur of a governor that over-taxed a people never heard of." 
Here the captain stopped to slap his leg. " It's a mighty inter- 
esting thing to come upon a score or two of stones set up on end 
in a desert, some short, some tall, some leaning here, some lean- 
ing there, and to know that they were pop'larly supposed — and 
may be still — to be a group of Cornishmen that got changed into 
that geological formation for playing a game upon a Sunday. They 
wouldn't have it in my country, I reckon, even if they could get 
it — but it's very interesting." 

In this, the captain, though it amused him, was quite sincere. 
Quite as sincere as when he added, after looking well about him : 
" That fog-bank coming up as the sun goes down, will spread, and 
we shall have to feel our way into Lanrean full as much as see it." 

All the way along, the young fisherman had spoken at times to 
the captain, of his interrupted hopes, and of the family good name, 
and of the restitution that must be made, and of the cherished 
plans of his heart so near attainment, which must be set aside for 
it. In his simple faith and honour, he seemed incapable of enter- 
taining the idea that it was within the bounds of possibility to 
evade the doing of what their inquiries should establish to be right. 
This was very agreeable to Captain Jorgan, and won his genuine 
admiration. Wherefore, he now turned the discourse back into 
that channel, and encouraged his companion to talk of Kitty, and 
to calculate how many years it would take, without a share in the 
fishery, to establish a home for her, and to relieve his honest heart 
by dwelling on its anxieties. 

Meanwhile, it fell very dark, and the fog became dense, though 
the wind howled at them and bit them as savagely as ever. The 
captain had carefully taken the bearings of Lanrean from the map, 
and carried his pocket compass with him ; the young fisherman, 
too, possessed that kind of cultivated instinct for shaping a course, 
which is often found among men of such pursuits. But, although 



254 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

they held a true course in the main, and corrected it when they 
lost the road by the aid of the compass and a light obtained with 
great difficulty in the roomy depths of the captain's hat, they could 
not help losing the road often. On such occasions they would be- 
come involved in the diflficult ground of the spongy moor, and, after 
making a laborious loop, would emerge upon the road, at some point 
they had passed before they left it, and thus would have a good 
deal of work to do twice over. But the young fisherman was not 
easily lost, and the captain (and his comb) would probably have 
turned up, with perfect coolness and self-possession, at any ap- 
pointed spot on the surface of this globe. Consequently, they 
were no more than retarded in their progress to Lanrean, and 
arrived in that small place at nine o'clock. By that time, the 
captain's hat had fallen back over his ears and rested on the nape 
of his neck ; but he still had his hands in his pockets, and showed 
no other sign of dilapidation. 

They had almost run against a low stone house with red-curtained 
windows, before they knew they had hit upon the little hotel, the 
King Arthur's Arms. They could just descry through the mist, 
on the opposite side of the narrow road, other low stone buildings 
which were its outhouses and stables ; and somewhere overhead, its 
invisible sign was being wrathful] y swung by the wind. 

" Now, wait a bit," said the captain. " They might be full here, 
or they might ofi'er us cold quarters. Consequently, the policy is 
to take an observation, and, when we've found the warmest room, 
walk right slap into it." 

The warmest room was evidently that from which fire and can- 
dle streamed reddest and brightest, and from which the sound of 
voices engaged in some discussion came out into the night. Cap- 
tain Jorgan having established the bearings of this room, merely 
said to his young friend, " Follow me ! " and was in it before King 
Arthur's Arms had any notion that they enfolded a stranger. 

" Order, order, order ! " cried several voices, as the captain, with 
his hat under his arm, stood within the door he had opened. 

" Gentlemen," said the captain, advancing, " I am much beholden 
to you for the opportunity you give me of addressing you ; but will 
not detain you with any lengthened observations. I have the hon- 
our to be a cousin of yours on the Uncle Sam side; this young 
friend of mine is a nearer relation of yours on the Devonshire side ; 
we are both pretty nigh used up, and much in want of supper. I 
thank you for your welcome, and I am proud to take you by the 
hand, sir, and I hope I see you well." 

The last words were addressed to a jolly-looking chairman 
with a wooden hammer near him; which, but for the captain's 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 265 

friendly grasp, he would have taken up, and hammered the table 
with. 

" How do you o?o, sir ? " said the captain, shaking this chairman's 
hand with the greatest heartiness, while his new friend ineffectually 
eyed his hammer of office ; " when you come to my country, I shall 
be proud to return your welcome, sir, and that of this good company." 

The captain now took his seat near the fire, and invited his 
companion to do the like — whom he congratulated aloud, on their 
having — "fallen on their feet." 

The company, who might be about a dozen in number, were at 
a loss what to make of, or do with, the captaili. But, one little 
old man in long flapping shirt collars, who, with only his face and 
them visible through a cloud of tobacco smoke, looked like a super- 
annuated Cherubim, said sharply : 

" This is a Club." 

"This is a Club," the captain repeated to his young friend. 
" Wa'al now, that's curious ! Didn't I say, coming along, if we 
could only light upon a Club? " 

The captain's doubling himself up, and slapping his leg, finished 
the chairman. He had been softening towards the captain from 
the first, and he melted. "Gentlemen King Arthurs," said he, 
rising, "though it is not the custom to admit strangers, still, as 
we have broken the rule once to-night, I will exert my authority 
and break it again. And while the supper of these travellers is 
cooking ; " here his eye fell on the landlord, who discreetly took 
the hint and withdrew to see about it ; "I will recall you to the 
subject of the seafaring man." 

" D'ye hear !" said the captain, aside to the young fisherman; 
" that's in our way. Who's the seafaring man, I wonder?" 

" I see several old men here," returned the young fisherman, 
eagerly, for his thoughts were always on his object. " Perhaps one 
or more of the old men whose names you wrote down in your book, 
may be here." 

" Perhaps," said the captain ; " I've got my eye on 'em. But 
don't force it. Try if it won't come nat'ral." 

Thus the two, behind their hands, while they sat warming them 
at the fire. Simultaneously, the Club beginning to be at its ease 
again, and resuming the discussion of the seafaring man, the cap- 
tain winked to his fellow-traveller to let him attend to it. 

As it was a kind of conversation not altogether unprecedented 
in such assemblages, where most of those who spoke at all, spoke 
all at once, and where half of those could put no beginning to what 
they had to say, and the other half could put no end, the tendency 
of the debate was discursive, and not very intelligible. All the cap- 



256 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

tain had made out, down to the time when the separate little table 
laid for two was covered with a smoking broiled fowl and rashers 
of bacon reduced itself to these heads. That, a seafaring man had 
arrived at the King Arthur's Arms, benighted, an hour or so earlier 
in the evening. That, the Gentlemen King Arthurs had admitted 
him, though all unknown, into the sanctuary of their Club. That, 
they had invited him to make his footing good by telling a story. 
That, he had, after some pressing, begun a story of adventure and 
shipwreck ; at an interesting point of which he suddenly broke off, 
and positively refused to finish. That, he had thereupon taken up 
a candlestick, and gone to bed, and was now the sole occupant of a 
double-bedded room up-stairs. The question raised on these prem- 
ises, appeared to be, whether the seafaring man was not in a state 
of contumacy and contempt, and ought not to be formally voted and 
declared in that condition. This deliberation involved the difficulty 
(suggested by the more jocose and irreverent of the Gentlemen 
King Arthurs) that it might make no sort of dift'erence to the sea- 
faring man whether he was so voted and declared, or not. 

Captain Jorgan and the young fisherman ate their supper and 
drank their beer, and their knives and forks had ceased to rattle and 
their glasses had ceased to clink, and still the discussion showed no 
symptoms of coming to any conclusion. But, when they had left 
their little supper-table and had returned to their seats by the fire, 
the chairman hammered himself into attention, and thus outspake. 

" Gentlemen King Arthurs ; when the night is so bad without, 
harmony should prevail within. When the moor is so windy, cold, 
and bleak, this room should be cheerful, convivial, and entertaining. 
Gentlemen, at present it is neither the one, nor yet the other, nor 
yet the other. Gentlemen King Arthurs, I recall you to yourselves. 
Gentlemen King Arthurs, what are you 1 You are inhabitants — 
old inhabitants — of the noble village of Lanrean. You are in 
council assembled. You are a monthly Club through all the winter 
months, and they are many. It is your perroud perrivilege, on a 
new member's entrance, or on a member's birthday, to call upon that 
member to make good his footing by relating to you some transac- 
tion or adventure in his life, or in the life of a relation, or in the life 
of a friend, and then to depute me as your representative to spin a 
teetotum to pass it round. Gentlemen King Arthurs, your perroud 
perrivileges shall not suff'er in my keeping. N-no ! Therefore, as 
the member whose birthday the present occasion has the honour to 
be, has gratified you ; and as the seafaring man overhead has not 
gratified you ; I start you fresh, by spinning the teetotum attached 
to my office, and calling on the gentleman it fidls to, to speak up 
when his name is declared." 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 257 

The captain and his young friend looked hard at the teetotum as 
it whirled rapidly, and harder still when it gradually became intoxi- 
cated and began to stagger about the table in an ill-conducted and 
disorderly manner. Finally, it came into collision with a candle- 
stick and leaped against the pipe of the old gentleman with the flap- 
ping shirt collars. Thereupon, the chairman struck the table once 
with his hammer and said : 

" Mr. Parvis ! " 

"D'ye hear that?" whispered the captain, greatly excited, to the 
young fisherman. "I'd have laid you a thousand dollars a good 
half hour ago, that that old cherubim in the, clouds was Arson 
Parvis ! " 

The respectable personage in question, after turning up one eye 
to assist his memory — at which time, he bore a very striking resem- 
blance indeed to the conventional representations of his race as exe- 
cuted in oil by various ancient masters — commenced a narrative, 
of which the interest centred in a waistcoat. It appeared that the 
waistcoat was a yellow waistcoat with a green stripe, white sleeves, 
and a plain brass button. It also appeared that the waistcoat was 
made to order by Nicholas Pendold of Penzance, who was thrown 
off the top of a four-horse coach coming down the hill on the Ply- 
mouth road, and pitching on his head where he was not sensitive, 
lived two-and-thirty years afterwards, and considered himself the 
better for the accident — roused up, as it might be. It further ap- 
peared that the waistcoat belonged to Mr. Parvis's father, and had 
once attended him, in company with a pair of gaiters, to the annual 
feast of miners at Saint Just; where the extraordinary circumstance 
which ever afterwards rendered it a waistcoat famous in story had 
occurred. But, the celebrity of the waistcoat was not thoroughly 
accounted for by Mr. Parvis, and had to be to some extent taken on 
trust by the company, in consequence of that gentleman's entirely 
forgetting all about the extraordinary circumstance that had handed 
it down to fame. Indeed, he was even unable, on a gentle cross- 
examination instituted for the assistance of his memory, to inform 
the Gentlemen King Arthurs whether it was a circumstance of a 
natural or supernatural character. Having thus responded to the 
teetotum, Mr. Parvis, after looking out from his clouds as if he 
would like to see the man who would beat that, subsided into him- 
self 

The fraternity were plunged into a blank condition by Mr. 
Parvis's success, and the chairman was about to try another spin, 
when young Raybrock — whom Captain Jorgan had with difficulty 
restrained — rose, and said might he ask Mr. Parvis a question. 

The Gentlemen King Arthurs holding, with loud cries "Order!" 



258 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

that he might not, he asked the question as soon as he could pos- 
sibly make himself heard. 

Did the forgotten circumstance relate in any way to money? 
To a sum of money, such as five hundred pounds? To money 
supposed by its possessor to be honestly come by, but in reality 
ill-gotten and stolen ? 

A general surprise seized upon the Club when this remarkable 
inquiry was preferred ; which would have become resentment but 
for the captain's interposition. 

"Strange as it sounds," said he, "and suspicious as it sounds, 
I pledge myself, gentlemen, that my young friend here has a 
manly stand-up Cornish reason for his words. Also, I pledge my- 
self that they are inoffensive words. He and I are searching for 
information on a subject which those words generally describe. 
Such information we may get from the honestest and best of men 
— may get, or not get, here or anywhere about here. I hope the 
Honourable Mr. Arson — I ask his pardon — Parvis — will not 
object to quiet my young friend's mind by saying Yes or No." 

After some time, the obtuse Mr. Parvis was with great trouble 
and diflSculty induced to roar out " No ! " For which concession 
the captain rose and thanked him. 

"Now, listen to the next," whispered the captain to the young 
fisherman. " There may be more in him than in the other crittur. 
Don't interrupt him. Hear him out." 

The chairman with all due formality spun the teetotum, and it 
reeled into the brandy-and-water of a strong brown man of sixty 
or so : John Tredgear : the manager of a neighbouring mine. He 
immediately began as follows, with a plain business-like air that 
gradually warmed as he proceeded. 



The chairman now announced that the clock declared the teeto- 
tum spun out, and that the meeting was dissolved. Yet even 
then, the young fisherman could not refrain from once more asking 
his question. This occasioned the Gentlemen King Arthurs, as 
they got on their hats and great-coats, evidently to regard him as 
a young fisherman who was touched in his head, and some of them 
even cherished the idea that the captain was his keeper. 

As no man dared to awake the mighty Parvis, it was resolved 
that a heavy member of the society should fall against him as it 
were by accident, and immediately withdraw to a safe distance. 
The experiment was so happily accomplished, that Mr. Parvis 
started to his feet on the best terms with himself, as a light sleeper 
whose wits never left him, and who could always be broad awake 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 259 

on occasion. Quite an airy jocundity sat upon this respectable 
man in consequence. And he rallied the briskest member of the 
fraternity on being "a sleepy-head," with an amount of humour 
previously supposed to be quite incompatible with his responsible 
circumstances in life. 

Gradually, the society departed into the cold night, and the cap- 
tain and his young companion were left alone. The captain had 
so refreshed himself by shaking hands with everybody, to an amaz- 
ing extent, that he was in no hurry to go to bed. 

"To-morrow morning," said the captain, "we must find out the 
lawyer and the clergyman here ; they are the people to consult on 
our business. And I'll be up and out early, aad asking questions 
of everybody I see ; thereby propagating at least one of the Insti- 
tutions of my native country." 

As the captain was slapping his leg, the landlord appeared with 
two small candlesticks. 

"Your room," said he, "is at the top of the house. An excel- 
lent bed, but you'll hear the wind." 

" I've heerd it afore," replied the captain. " Come and make a 
passage with me, and you shall hear it." 

"It's considered to blow, here," said the landlord. 

" Weather gets its young strength here," replied the captain ; 
" goes into training for the Atlantic Ocean. Yours are little winds 
just beginning to feel their way and crawl. Make a voyage with 
me, and I'll show you a grown-up one out on business. But you 
haven't told my friend where he lies." 

" It's the room at the head of the stairs, before you take the 
second staircase through the wall," returned the landlord. "You 
can't mistake it. It's a double-bedded room, because there's no 
other." 

"The room where the seafaring man is," said the captain. 

"The room where the seafaring man is." 

" I hope he mayn't finish telling his story in his sleep," remarked 
the captain. "Shall / turn into the room where the seafaring 
man is, Alfred ? " 

" No, Captain Jorgan, why should you ? There would be little 
fear of his waking me, even if he told his whole story out." 

" He's in the bed nearest the door," said the landlord. " I've 
been in to look at him, once, and he's sound enough. Good night, 
gentlemen." 

The captain immediately shook hands with the landlord in quite 
an enthusiastic manner, and having performed that national cere- 
mony, as if he had had no opportunity of performing it for a long 
time, accompanied his young friend up-stairs. 



260 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

" Something tells me," said the captain as they went, " that Miss 
Kitty Tregarthen's marriage ain't put off for long, and that we 
shall light on what we want." 

"I hope so. When, do you think?" 

" Wa'al, I couldn't just say when, but soon. Here's your room," 
said the captain, softly opening the door and looking in ; " and here's 
the berth of the seafaring man. I wonder what like he is. He 
breathes deep : don't he ? " 

" Sleeping like a child, to judge from the sound," said the young 
fisherman. 

" Dreaming of home, maybe," returned the captain. " Can't see 
him. Sleeps a deal more wholesomely than Arson Parvis, but 
a'most as sound; don't he? Good night, fellow-traveller." 

" Good-night, Captain Jorgan, and many, many thanks." 

"I'll wait till I 'arn 'em, boy, afore I take 'em," returned the 
captain, clapping him cheerfully on the back. " Pleasant dreams 
of — you know who ? " 

When the young fisherman had closed the door, the captain 
waited a moment or two, listening for any stir on the part of the 
unknown seafaring man. But, none being audible, the captain 
pursued the way to his own chamber. 



Chapter IV. 

THE SEAFAEING MAN. 

Who was the seafaring man ? And what might he have to 
say for himself ? He answers those questions in his own words : 

I begin by mentioning what happened on my journey, north- 
wards, from Falmouth in Cornwall, to Steepways in Devonshire. 
I have no occasion to say (being here) that it brought me last 
night to Lanrean. I had business in hand which was part very 
serious, and part (as I hoped) very joyful — and this business, you 
will please to remember, was the cause of my journey. 

After landing at Falmouth, I travelled on foot ; because of the 
expense of riding, and because I had anxieties heavy on my mind, 
and walking was the best way I knew of to lighten them. The 
first two days of my journey the weather was fine and soft, the 
wind being mostly light airs from south, and south and by west. 
On the third day, I took a wrong turning, and had to fetch a long 
circuit to get right again. Towards evening, while I was still on 
the road, the wind shifted ; and a sea-fog came rolling in on the 
land. I went on through what I ask leave to call, the white dark- 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 261 

ness ; keeping the sound of the sea on my left hand for a guide, 
and feeling those anxieties of mine before mentioned, pulling heavier 
and heavier at my mind, as the fog thickened and the wet trickled 
down my face. 

It was still early in the evening, when I heard a dog bark, away 
in the distance, on the right-hand side of me. Following the sound 
as well as I could, and shouting to the dog, from time to time, to 
set him barking again, I stumbled up at last against the back of 
a house ; and, hearing voices inside, groped my way round to the 
door, and knocked on it smartly with the flat of my hand. 

The door was opened by a slip-slop young hussy in a torn 
gown ; and the first inquiries I made of her discovered to me that 
the house was an inn. 

Before I could ask more questions, the landlord opened the par- 
lour door of the inn and came out. A clamour of voices, and a fine 
comforting smell of fire and grog and tobacco, came out, also, along 
with him. 

"The taproom fire's out," says the landlord. "You don't think 
you would dry more comfortable like, if you went to bed ? " says 
he, looking hard at me. 

"No," says I, looking hard at him; "I don't." 

Before more words were spoken, a jolly voice hailed us from 
inside the parlour. 

"What's the matter, landlord? " says the jolly voice. "Who is it?" 

" A seafaring man, by the looks of him," says the landlord, turn- 
ing round from me, and speaking into the parlour. 

" Let's have the seafaring man in," says the voice. " Let's vote 
him free of the Club, for this night only." 

A lot of other voices thereupon said, " Hear ! hear ! " in a solemn 
manner, as if it was church service. After which there was a 
hammering, as if it was a trunk-maker's shop. After which the 
landlord took me by the arm ; gave me a push into the parlour ; 
and there I was, free of the Club. 

The change from the fog outside to the warm room and the 
shining candles so completely dazed me, that I stood blinking at 
the company more like an owl than a man. Upon which the 
company again said, " Hear ! hear ! " Upon which I returned for 
answer, " Hear ! hear ! " — considering those words to mean, in the 
Club's language, something similar to " How-d'ye-do." The landlord 
then took me to a round table by the fire, where I got my supper, 
together with the information that my bedroom, when I wanted 
it, was number four, up-stairs. 

I noticed before I fell to with my knife and fork that the room 
was full, and that the chairman at the top of the table was the 



262 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

man with the jolly voice, and was seemingly amusing the company 
by telling them a story. I paid more attention to my supper than 
to what he was saying ; and all I can now report of it is, that his 
story-telling and my eating and drinking both came to an end 
together. 

" Now," says the chairman, " I have told my story to start you 
all. Who comes next 1 " 

He took up a teetotum, and gave it a spin on the table. When 
it toppled over, it fell opposite me ; upon which the chairman said, 
" It's your turn next. Order ! order ! I call on the seafaring 
man to tell the second story ! " He finished the words off with a 
knock of his hammer ; and the Club (having nothing else to say, 
as I suppose) tried back, and once again sang out all together, 
"Hear! hear!" 

"I hope you will please to let me off," I said to the chairman, 
"for the reason that I have got no story to tell." 

" No story to tell ! " says he. "A sailor without a story ! Who 
ever heard of such a thing 1 Nobody ! " 

"Nobody," says the Club, bursting out all together at last with 
a new word, by way of a change. 

I can't say I quite relished the chairman's talking of me as if I 
was before the mast, A man likes his true quality to be known, 
when he is publicly spoken to among a party of strangers. I 
made my true quality known to the chairman and company, in 
these words. 

"All men who follow the sea, gentlemen, are sailors," I said. 
" But there's degrees aboard ship as well as ashore. My rating, 
if you please, is the rating of a second mate." 

"Ay, ay, surely?" says the chairman. "Where did you leave 
your ship 1 " 

"At the bottom of the sea," I made answer — which was, I 
am sorry to say, only too true. 

"What! you've been wrecked?" says he. "Tell us all about 
it. A shipwreck-story is just the sort of story we like. Silence 
there all down the table ! — silence for the second mate ! " 

The Club, upon this, instead of keeping silence, broke out vehe- 
mently with another new word, and said " Chair ! " After which 
every man suddenly held his peace, and looked at me. 

I did a very foolish thing. Without stopping to take counsel 
with myself, I started off at score, and did just what the chairman 
had bidden me. If they had waited the whole night long for it, 
I should never have told them the story they wanted from me at 
first, having all my life been a wretched bad hand at such matters 
— for the reason, as I take it, that a story is bound to be some- 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 263 

thing which is not true. But when I found the company willing, 
on a sudden, to put up with nothing better than the account of 
my ship^\Teck (which is not a story at all), the unexpected luck of 
being let off with only telling the truth about myself, was too much 
of a temptation for me — so I up and told it. 

I got on well enough with the storm, and the striking of the 
vessel, and the strange chance, afterwards, which proved to be the 
saving of my life — the assembly all listening (to my great sur- 
prise) as if they had never heard anything of the sort before. But, 
when the necessity came next for going further than this, and for 
telling them what had happened to me after the saving of my life 
— or, to put it plainer, for telling them what' place I was cast 
away on, and what company I was cast away in — the words died 
straight off on my lips. For this reason — namely — that those 
particulars of my statement made up just that part of it which I 
couldn't, and durstn't, let out to strangers — no, not if every man 
among them had offered me a hundred pounds apiece, on the spot, 
to do it ! 

" Go on ! " says the chairman. "What happened next ! How 
did you get on shore 1 " 

Feeling what a fool I had been to run myself headlong into a 
scrape, for want of thinking before I spoke, I now cast about dis- 
creetly in my mind for the best means of finishing off-hand with- 
out letting out a word to the company concerning those particulars 
before mentioned. I was some little time before seeing my way 
to this ; keeping the chairman and company, all the while, waiting 
for an answer. The Club, losing patience in consequence, got from 
staring hard at me to drumming with their feet, and then to call- 
ing out lustily, "Go on! go on ! Chair! Order!" . . . and such 
like. In the midst of this childish hubbub, I saw my way to 
what I considered to be rather a neat finish — and got on my legs 
to ease them all off with it handsomely. 

" Hear ! hear ! " says the Club. " He's going on again at last." 

"Gentlemen!" I made answer; "with your permission I will 
now conclude by wishing you all good night." Saying which 
words, I gave them a friendly nod, to make things pleasant — and 
walked straight to the door. It's hardly to be believed — though 
nevertheless quite true — that these curious men all howled and 
groaned at me directly, as if I had done them some grievous in- 
jury. Thinking I would try to pacify them with their own fa- 
vourite catch-word, I said, " Hear ! hear ! " as civilly as might be, 
whereupon, they all returned for answer, " Oh ! oh ! " I never 
belonged to a Club of any kind, myself; and, after what I saw of 
that Club, I don't care if I never do. 



264 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

My bedroom, when I found my way up to it, was large and airy 
enough, but not over-clean. There were two beds in it, not over- 
clean either. Both being empty, I had my choice. One was near 
the window, and one near the door. I thought the bed near the 
door looked a trifle the sweetest of the two ; and took it. 

After faUing asleep, it was the grey of the morning before I 
woke. When I had fairly opened my eyes and shook up my mem- 
ory into telling me where I was, I made two discoveries. First, 
that the room was a deal colder in the new morning, than it had 
been over night. Second, that the other bed near the window had 
got some one sleeping in it. Not that I could see the man from 
where I lay ; but I heard his breathing plain enough. He must 
have come up into the room, of course, after I had fallen asleep — 
and he had tumbled himself quietly into bed without disturbing 
me. There was nothing wonderful in that ; and nothing wonder- 
ful in the landlord letting the empty bed if he could find a customer 
for it. I turned, and tried to go to sleep again ; but I was out of 
sorts — out of sorts so badly, that even the breathing of the man 
in the other bed fretted and worried me. After tumbling and 
tossing for a quarter of an hour or more, I got up for a change ; 
and walked softly in my stockings, to the window, to look at the 
morning. 

The heavens were brightening into daylight, and the mists were 
blowing off, past the window, like puffs of smoke. When I got 
even with the second bed, I stopped to look at the man in it. He 
lay, sound asleep, turned towards the window; and the end of the 
counterpane was drawn up over the lower half of his face. Some- 
thing strack me, on a sudden, in his hair, and his forehead ; and, 
though not an inquisitive man by nature, I stretched out my hand 
to the end of the counterpane, in spite of myself. 

I uncovered his face softly ; and there, in the morning light, I 
saw my brother, Alfred Raybrock. 

What I ought to have done, or what other men might have done 
in my place, I don't know. What I really did, was to drop back a 
step — to steady myself, with my hand, on the sill of the window — 
and to stand so, looking at him. Three years ago, I had said good- 
bye to my wife, to my little child, to my old mother, and to brother 
Alfred here, asleep under my eyes. For all those three years, no 
news from me had reached them — and the underwriters, as I knew, 
must have long since reported that the ship I sailed in was lost, 
and that all hands on board had perished. My heart was heavy 
when I thought of my kindred at home, and of the weary time they 
must have waited and sorrowed before they gave me up for dead. 
Twice I reached out my hand to wake Alfred, and to ask him about 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 265 

my wife and child ; and twice I drew it back again, in fear of what 
might happen if he saw me, standing by his bed-head in the grey 
morning like Hugh Raybrock risen up from the grave. 

I drew my hand back the second time, and waited a minute. In 
that minute he woke. I had not moved, or spoken a word, or touched 
him — I had only looked at him longingly. If such things could 
be, I should say it was my looking that woke him. His eyes, when 
they opened under mine, passed on a sudden from fast asleep to 
broad awake. They first settled on my face with a startled look — 
which passed directly. He lifted himself on his elbow, and opened 
his lips to speak, but never said a word. His' eyes strained and 
strained into mine ; and his face turned all over of a ghastly white. 
"Alfred ! " I said, "don't you know me ?" There seemed to be a 
deadly terror pent up in him, and I thought my voice might set it 
free. I took fast hold of him by the hands, and spoke again. 
"Alfred!" I said . . . 

Oh, sirs ! where can a man like me find words to tell all that was 
said and all that was thought between us two brothers 1 Please to 
pardon my not saying more of it than I say here. We sat down 
together side by side. The poor lad burst out crying — and got 
vent that way. I kept my hold of his hands, and waited a bit be- 
fore I spoke to him again. I think I was worst off", now, of the 
two — no tears came to help 7ne — I haven't got my brother's 
quickness, any way ; and my troubles have roughened and hard- 
ened me outside. But, God knows, I felt it keenly ; all the more 
keenly, maybe, because I was slow to show it. 

After a little, I put the questions to him which I had been long- 
ing to ask, from the time when I first saw his face on the pillow. 
Had they all given me up at home, for dead (I asked 1) Yes ; after 
long, long hoping, one by one they had given me up — my wife 
(God bless her !) last of all. I meant to ask next if my wife was 
alive and well ; but, try as I might, I could only say " Margaret ? " 
— and look hard in my brother's face. He knew what I meant. 
Yes (he said), she was living ; she was at home ; she was in her 
widow's weeds — poor soul ! her widow's weeds ! I got on better 
with my next question about the child. Was it born alive ? Yes. 
Boy or girl ! Girl. And living now; and much grown? Living 
surely, and grown — poor little thing, what a question to ask ! — 
grown of course, in three years. And mother ? Well, mother was 
a trifle fallen away, and more silent within herself than she used to 
be — fretting at times ; fretting (like my wife) on nights when the 
sea rose and the windows shook and shivered in the wind. Tlicrc- 
upon, my brother and I waited a bit again — I witli my questions, 
and he with his answers — and while we waited, I thanked God, in- 



266 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

wardly, with all my heart and soul, for bringing me back, living, 
to wife and kindred, while wife and kindred were living too. 

My brother dried the tears off his face ; and looked at me a little. 
Then he turned aside suddenly, as if he remembered something; 
and stole his hand in a hurry, under the pillow of his bed. Noth- 
ing came out from below the pillow but his black neck-handkerchief, 
which he now unfolded slowly, looking at me, all the while, with 
something strange in his face that I couldn't make out. 

" What are you doing 1 " I asked him. " What are you looking 
at me like that for 1 " 

Instead of making answer, he took a crumpled morsel of paper 
out of his neck-handkerchief, opened it carefully, and held it to the 
light to let me see what it was. Lord in Heaven! — my own 
writing — the morsel of paper I had committed long, long since, to 
the mercy of the deep. Thousands and thousands of miles away, I 
had trusted that Message to the waters — and here it was now, in 
my brother's hands ! A chilly fear came over me at the seeing it 
again. Scrap of paper as it was, it looked to my eyes like the ghost 
of my own past self, gone home before me invisibly over the great 
wastes of the sea. 

My brother pointed down solemnly to the writing. 

" Hugh," he said, " were you in your right mind when you wrote 
those words ? " 

"Tell me, first," I made answer, "how and when the Message 
came to you. I can't quiet myself fit to talk till I know that." 

He told me how the paper had come to hand — also, how his 
good friend, the captain, having promised to help him, was then 
under the same roof with our two selves. But there he stopped. 
It was not till later in the day that I heard of what had happened 
(through this dreadful doubt about the money) in the matter of his 
sweetheart and his marriage. 

The knowledge that the Message had reached him by mortal 
means — on the word of a seaman, I half doubted it when I first 
set eyes on the paper ! — eased me in my mind ; and I now did my 
best to quiet Alfred in my turn. I told him that I was in my 
right senses, though sorely troubled, when my hand had written 
those words. Also, that where the writing was rubbed out, I could 
tell him for his necessary gl^idance and mine, what once stood in 
the empty places. Also, that I knew no more what the real truth 
might be than he did, till inquiry was made, and the slander on 
father's good name was dragged boldly into daylight to show itself 
for what it was worth. Lastly, that all the voyage home, there 
was one hope and one determination uppermost in my mind — the 
hope, that I might get safe to England, and find my wife and kin- 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 2G7 

dred alive to take me back among them again — the determination 
that I would put the doubt about father's five hundred pounds to 
the proof, if ever my feet touched English land once more. 

" Come out with me now, Alfred," I said, after winding up as 
above ; " and let me tell you in the quiet of the morning how that 
Message came to be written and committed to the sea." 

We went down-stairs softly, and let ourselves out without dis- 
turbing any one. The sun was just rising when we left the village 
and took our way slowly over the clifts. As soon as the sea began 
to open on us, I returned to that tme story of mine which I had 
left but half told, the night before — and, this time, I went through 
with it to the end. 

I shipped, as you may remember (were my first words to Alfred), 
in a second mate's berth, on board the Peruvian, nine hundred tons' 
burden. We carried an assorted cargo, and we were bound round 
the Horn, to Truxillo and Guayaquil, on the western coast of South 
America. From this last port — namely, Guayaquil — we were to 
go back to Truxillo, and there to take in another cargo for the return 
voyage. Those were all the instructions communicated to me when 
I signed articles with the owners, in London city, three years ago. 

After we had been, I think, a week at sea, I heard from the 
first mate — who had himself heard it from the captain — that the 
supercargo we were taking with us, on the outward voyage, was to 
be left at Truxillo, and that another supercargo (also connected 
with our firm, and latterly employed by them as their foreign agent) 
was to ship with us at that port, for the voyage home. His name 
on the captain's instructions was, Mr. Lawrence Clissold. None 
of us had ever set eyes on him to our knowledge, and none of us 
knew more about him than what I have told you here. 

We had a wonderful voyage out — especially round the Horn. 
I never before saw such fair weather in that infernal latitude, and 
I never expect to see the like again. We followed our instructions 
to the letter ; discharging our cargo in fine condition, and returning 
to Truxillo to load again as directed. At this place, I was so un- 
fortunate as to be seized with the fever of the country, which laid 
me on my back, while we were in harbour ; and which only let me 
return to my duty after we had been ten days at sea, on the voyage 
home again. For this reason, the first morning when I was able 
to get on deck, was also the first time of my setting eyes on our 
new supercargo, Mr. Lawrence Clissold. 

I found him to be a long, lean, wiry man, with some complaint 
in his eyes which forced him to wear spectacles of blue glass. His 
age appeared to be fifty-six, or thereabouts; but he might well 



268 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

have been more. There was not above a handful of grey hair, 
altogether, on his bald head — and, as for the wrinkles at the 
corners of his eyes and the sides of his mouth, if he could have had 
a pound apiece in his pocket for every one of them, he might have 
retired from business from that time forth. Judging by certain 
signs in his face, and by a suspicious morning-tremble in his hands, 
I set him down, in my own mind (rightly enough, as it afterwards 
turned out), for a drinker. In one word, I didn't like the looks of 
the new supercargo — and, on the first day when I got on deck, I 
found that he had reasons of his own for paying me back in my 
own coin, and not liking my looks, either. 

"I've been asking the captain about you," were his first words 
to me in return for my civilly wishing him good morning. "Your 
name's Raybrock, I hear. Are you any relation to the late Hugh 
Ray brock, of Barnstaple, Devonshire?" 

" Rather a near relation," I made answer. " I am the late Hugh 
Raybrock's eldest son." 

There was no telling how his eyes looked, because they were 
hidden by his blue spectacles — but I saw him wince at the mouth, 
when I gave him that reply. 

"Your father ended by failing in business, didn't he?" was the 
next question the supercargo put to me. 

" Who told you he failed ? " I asked, sharply enough. 

"Oh! I heard it," says Mr. Lawrence Chssold, both looking and 
speaking as if he was glad to have heard it, and he hoped it was 
true. 

"Whoever told you my father failed in business, told you a lie," 
I said. " His business fell off towards the last years of his life — 
I don't deny it. But every creditor he had was honestly paid at 
his death, without so much as touching the provision left for his 
widow and children. Please to mention that, next time you hear 
it reported that my father failed in business." 

Mr. Clissold grinned to himself — and I lost my temper. 

"I'll tell you what," I said to him, " I don't like your laughing 
to yourself, when I ask you to do justice to my father's memory — 
and, what is more, I didn't like the way you mentioned that 
report of his failing in business, just now. You looked as if you 
hoped it was true." 

" Perhaps I did," says Mr. CHssold, coolly. " Shall I tell you 
why ? When I was a young man, I was unlucky enough to owe 
your father some money. He was a merciless creditor, and he 
threatened me with a prison if the debt remained unpaid on the 
day when it was due. I have never forgotten that circumstance ; 
and I should certainly not have been sorry if your father's creditors 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 269 

had giveu him a lesson in forbearance, by treating him as harshly 
as he once treated me." 

"My father had a right to ask for his own," I broke out. " If 
you owed him the money and didn't pay it " 

" I never told you I didn't pay it," says Mr. Clissold, as coolly as 
ever. 

"Well, if you did pay it," I put in, "then, you didn't go to 
prison — and you have no cause of complaint now. My father 
wronged nobody ; and I won't believe he ever wronged you. He 
was a just man in all his dealings ; and whoe^r tells me to the 
contrary — " 

'' That will do," says Mr. Clissold, backing away to the cabin 
stairs. "You seem to have not quite got over your fever yet. I'll 
leave you to air yourself in the sea-breezes, Mr. Second Mate ; and 
I'll receive your excuses when you are cool enough to make them." 

"It is a son's business to defend his father's character," I 
answered ; " and cool or hot, I'll leave the ship sooner than ask 
your pardon for doing my duty." 

"You will leave the ship," says the supercargo, quietly going 
down into the cabin. " You will leave at the next port, if I have 
any interest with the captain." 

That was how Mr. Clissold and I scraped acquaintance on the 
first day when we met together. And as we began, so we went on 
to the end. But, though he persecuted me in almost every other 
way, he did not anger me again about my father's affairs : he seemed 
to have dropped talking of them at once and for ever. On my side, 
I nevertheless bore in mind what he had said to me, and determined, 
if I got home safe, to go to the lawyer at Barnstaple who keeps 
father's old books and letters for us, and see what information they 
might give on the subject of Mr. Lawrence Clissold. I, myself, 
had never heard his name mentioned at home — father (as you 
know, Alfred) being always close about business-matters, and 
mother never troubling him with idle questions about his affairs. 
But it was likely enough that he and Mr. Clissold might have been 
concerned in money-matters, in past years, and that Mr. Clissold 
might have tried to cheat him, and failed. I rather hoped it might 
prove to be so -*— for the truth is, the supercargo provoked me past 
all endurance ; and I hated him as heartily as he hated me. 

All this while the ship was making such a speedy voyage down 
the coast, that we began to think we were carrying back with us the 
fine weather we had brought out. But, on nearing Cape Horn, 
the signs and tokens appeared which told us that our run of luck 
was at an end. Down went the barometer, lower and lower ; and 
up got the wind, in the northerly quarter, higher and higher. This 



270 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

happened towards nightfall — and at daybreak next day, we found 
ourselves forced to lay-to. It blew all that day and all that night ; 
towards noon the next day, it lulled a little, and we made sail again. 
But at sunset, the heavens grew blacker than ever ; and the wind 
returned upon us with double and treble fury. The Peruvian was 
a fine, stout, roomy ship, but the unliandiest vessel at laying-to I 
ever sailed in. After taking tons of water on board and losing our 
best boat, we had nothing left for it but to turn tail, and scud for 
our lives. For the next three days and nights we ran before the 
wind. The gale moderated more than once in that time ; but there 
was such a sea on, that we durstn't heave the ship to. From the 
beginning of the gale none of us officers had a chance of taking any 
observations. We only knew that the wind was driving us as hard 
as we could go in a southerly direction, and that we were by this 
time hundreds of miles out of the ordinary course of ships in doub- 
ling the Cape. 

On the third night — or rather, I should say, early on the fourth 
morning — I went below, dead beat, to get a little rest, leaving the 
vessel in charge of the captain and the first mate. The night was 
then pitch-black — it was raining, hailing, and sleeting all at once 
' — and the Peruvian was wallowing in the frightful seas, as if she 
meant to roll the masts out of her. I tumbled into bed the instant 
my wet oilskins were off" my back, and slept as only a man can who 
lays himself down dead beat. 

I was woke — how long afterwards I don't know, by being 
pitched clean out of my berth on to the cabin floor ; and, at the 
same moment, I heard the crash of the ship's timbers, forward, 
which told me it was all over with us. 

Though bruised and shaken by my fall, I was on deck directly. 
Before I had taken two steps forward, the Peruvian forged ahead 
on the send of the sea, swung round a little, and stmck heavily at 
the bows for the second time. The shrouds of the foremast cracked 
one after another, hke pistol-shots ; and the mast went overboard. 
I next felt our people go tearing past me, in the black darkness, to 
the lee-side of the vessel ; and I knew that, in their last extremity, 
they were taking to the boats. I say I felt them go past me, 
because the roaring of the sea and the howling of tl^e wind deafened 
me on deck, as completely as the darkness blinded me. I myself 
no more believed the boats would live in the sea, than I believed , 
the ship would hold together on the reef — but, as the rest were- 
running the risk, I made up my mind to run it with them. 

But before I followed the crew to leeward, I Avent below again 
for a minute — not to save money or clothes, for, with death star- 
ing me in the face, neither were of any account, now — but to get 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 271 

my little writing case which mother had given me at parting. 
A curl of Margaret's hair was in the pocket inside it, with all the 
letters she had sent me when I had been away on other voyages. 
If I saved anything I was resolved to save this — and if I died, I 
would die with it about me. 

My locker was jammed with the wrenching of the ship, and had 
to be broken open. I was, maybe, longer over this job than I 
myself supposed. At any rate, when I got on deck again with my 
case in my breast, it was useless calling, and useless groping about. 
The largest of the two boats, when I felt for it, was gone ; and 
every soul on board was beyond a doubt gone with her. 

Before I had time to think, I was thrown off my feet, by another 
sea coming on board, and a great heave of the vessel, which drove 
her farther over the reef, and canted the after-part of her up like 
the roof of a house. In that position the stern stuck, wedged fast 
into the rocks beneath, while the fore-part of the ship was all to 
pieces and down under water. If the after-part kept the place it 
was now jammed in, till daylight, there might be a chance — but 
if the sea wrenched it out from between the rocks, there was an 
end of me. After straining my eyes to discover if there was land 
beyond the reef, and seeing nothing but the flash of the breakers, . 
like white fire in the darkness, I crawled below again to the shelter 
of the cabin stairs, and waited for death or daylight. 

As the morning hours wore on, the weather moderated again ; 
and the after-part of the vessel, though shaken often, was not 
shaken out of its place. A little before dawn, the winds and the 
waves, though fierce enough still, allowed me, at last, to hear 
something besides themselves. What I did hear, crouched up in 
my dark corner, was a heavy thumping and grinding, every now 
and then, against the side of the ship to windward. Day broke 
soon afterwards ; and, when I climbed to the deck, I clawed my 
way up to windward first, to see what the noise was caused by. 

My first look over the bulwark showed me that it was caused 
by the boat which my unfortunate brother-officers and the crew 
had launched and gone away in when the ship struck. The boat 
was bottom upwards, thumping against the ship's side on the lift 
of the sea. I wanted no second look at it to tell me that every 
mother's son of them was drowned. 

The main and mizen masts still stood. I got into the mizen 
rigging, to look out next to leeward — and there, in the blessed 
rlaylight, I saw a low, green, rocky little island, lying away beyond 
the reef, barely a mile distant from the ship. My life began to 
look of small value to me again, when I saw land. I got higher 
ap in the rigging to note how the current set, and where there 



272 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

might be a passage through the reef. The ship had driven over 
the rocks through the worst of the surf, and the sea between myself 
and the island, though angry and broken in places, was not too 
high for a lost man like me to venture on — provided I could 
launch the last, and smallest boat still left in the vessel. I noted 
carefully the likeliest-looking channel for trying the experiment, 
and then got down on deck again to see what I could do, first of 
all, with the boat. 

At the moment when my feet touched the deck, I heard a dull 
knocking and banging just under them, in the region of the cabin. 
When the sound first reached my ears, I got such a shock of sur- 
prise that I could neither move nor speak. It had never yet 
crossed my mind that a single soul was left in the vessel besides 
myself — but now, there was something in the knocking noise which 
started the hope in me that I was not alone. I shook myself up, 
and got down below directly. 

The noise came from inside one of the sleeping berths, on the far 
side of the main cabin; the door of which was jammed, no doubt 
just as my locker had been jammed, by the wrenching of the ship. 
"Who's there?" I called out. A faint, mufiled kind of voice an- 
swered something through the air-grating in the upper part of the 
door. I got up on the overthrown cabin furniture, and looking in 
through the trellis-work of the grating, found myself face to face 
with the blue spectacles of Mr. Lawrence Clissold, looking out. 

God forgive me for thinking it — but there was not a man in the 
vessel I wouldn't sooner have found alive in her than Mr. Clissold. 
Of all that ship's company, we two, who were least friendly together, 
were the only two saved. 

I had a better chance of breaking out the jammed door from the 
main cabin than he had from the berth inside ; and in less than 
five minutes he was set free. I had smelt spirits already through 
the air-grating — and now, when he and I stood face to face, I saw 
what the smell meant. There was an open case of spirits by the 
bedside — two of the bottles out of it were lying broken on the 
floor — and Mr. Clissold was drunk. 

"What's the matter with the ship?" says he, looking fierce and 
speaking thick. 

"You shall see for yourself," says I. With which words I took 
hold of him, and pulled him after me up the cabin stairs. I reck- 
oned on the sight that would meet him, when he first looked over 
the deck, to sober his drunken brains — and I reckoned right : he 
fell on his knees, stock-still and speechless as if he was turned to 
stone. 

I lashed him up safe to the cabin rail, and left it to the air to 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 273 

bring him round. He had, hkely enough, been drinking in the 
sleeping berths for days together — for none of us, as I now re- 
membered, had seen him since the gale set in — and even if he 
had had sense enough to try to get out, or to call for help, when 
the ship struck, he would not have made himself heard in the noise 
and confusion of that awful time. But for the lull in the weather, 
I should not have heard him myself, when he attempted to get free 
in the morning. Enemy of mine as he was, he had a pair of arms 
— and he was worth untold gold, in my situation, for that reason. 
With the help I could make him give me, there was no doubt now 
about launching the boat. In half an hour I had the means ready 
for trying the experiment ; and Mr. Clissold was sober enough to 
see that his life depended on his doing what I told him. 

The sky looked angry still — there was no opening anywhere — 
and the clouds were slowly banking up again to windward. The 
supercargo knew what I meant when I pointed that way, and 
worked with a will when I gave him the word. I had previously 
stowed away in the boat such stores of meat, biscuit, and fresh 
water as I could readily lay hands on ; together with a compass, 
a lantern, a few candles, and some boxes of matches in my pocket, 
to kindle light and fire with. At the last moment, I thought of 
a gun and some powder and shot. The powder and shot I found, 
and an old flint pocket pistol in the captain's cabin — with which, 
for fear of wasting precious time, I was forced to be content. The 
pistol lay on the top of the medicine chest — and I took that also, 
finding it handy, and not knowing but what it might be of use. 
Having made these preparations, we launched the boat, down the 
steep of the deck, into the water over the forward part of the ship 
which was sunk. I took the oars, ordering Mr. Clissold to sit still 
in the stern-sheets — and pulled for the island. 

It was neck or nothing with us more than once, before we were 
two hundred yards from the ship. Luckily, the supercargo was 
used to boats ; and muddled as he still was, he had sense enough 
to sit quiet. We found our way into the smooth channel which I 
had noted from the mizen rigging — after which, it was easy enough 
to get ashore. 

We landed on a little sandy creek. From the time of our leav- 
ing the ship, the supercargo had not spoken a word to me, nor I to 
him. I now told him to lend a hand in getting the stores out of 
the boat, and in helping me to carry them to the first sheltered 
place we could find in shore on the island. He shook himself up 
with a sulky look at me, and did as I had bidden him. We found 
a little dip or dell in the ground, after getting up the low sides of 
the island, which was sheltered to windward — and here I left him 



274 A MKSSAdK VUOy\ VUK SFA. 

ti> stow away tlio sUutvs wliilo I walUoil larlhtM on, to suiV(\v tlio 
phuv. 

AivonliMj^- to tho hasty jvuls;iuont I t\Muu'(l at {\\c tiim\ \\\c islaml 
was iu>t. a mili^ arn>ss, ami not nuu'li moro than tlutv inihvs rouiul. I 
notoil nothing' in ti»o way ot' I'ooil but a tow wiKl roots anil vt\iiotaMos, 
jjn^win^ in raiigotl pati'lios amiilst tlio thiok sonih whioh oovon^d thi^ 
phuv. Thoro was iu>t a tivo on it anywhoiv ; nor atiy livini<- oroat 
uixvs ; nov any si^ij:ns of t'lvsli watvr that I ooiiKl soo. Stanilin^- on thi> 
hij?l\ost ,y;ronn»l, I lookoil ulkuit anxioUvsly for otl\or islanvls that niiiiht 
ho inliahittul ; tlioiv won> nono visiMo at loast nono in tlio ha.y 
stnto odW ln\'\Yons that inornin^f. Wlion I tairly ilisoovoml wliat a 
iltvsort tho plai'iMvas : whon I ronuMnhorotl l\ow tar it lay ont ot" 
tho traok o\' ships; anil whon I thoniiht of tho sniall stoiv o( pro 
visions whiol\ wo havl bron>iht with ns. tho doiibt lost wo nuirht 
only havo ohani^Oil tho ohanoo o( iloath by ilrowninii' for tho ohauii" 
o( ihwth by starvativui was si> stnu\u' wx n\o. that I ilotornuni^l to 
«>> hiok to tho boat, witli tho ilosporato notion o( n\akii\ir anotiuM- 
trip to tho V(^ssi>l tor wator an<l ttunl. I say dosporato. Invansi^ thi> 
oUmuIs to winilwanl wtnv hmkinii" up blaokiM" an»l hi^iihor ovory 
niinuto, tho winil was froshonini;" alroaily. anil thoro was ovory siun 
of tho storni ooniinu" oi\ aj;uin wiUlor aiul tioivor than ovim-. 

Mr. (Missohl, whoji I i>assoil him on n\y way Iviok to tho boaoh. 
hail jii\>t tho stoivs pivtty tiily, oovoivil with tho tarpanlit\ whioh I 
hail thn>wn ovor thoni '\\\ tho bottom of tho boat, .lust as 1 lookoil 
ilown at him in tho hollow, I .saw him tako a bottlo o( spirits owl 
of tho pivkot o( his pilot oivit. Uk' n\nst havo stowinl tho bottlo 
away tl»oiv, as I suppovso, whilo I was broakinij opon tho iloor o( 
his borth. " You'll Iv ib\>wnoil. anil 1 shall havo lUniblo allow anoo 
to livo upon hoiv," was all ho saiil to mo, whon ho hoanl 1 was iio 
in.ii' K'»ok to tho ship. " Yos ! ami ilii\ in your turn, whoti you'vo 
i;\>t thnmii'h it^" says I, jjXMUg away to tho Kvit. It's shookinsi' to 
think of now but wo ooulilt\'t Iv oivil to oaoh othor. ovon on tho 
t'u-st ilay whon wo woiv wnvkoil toicvthor. 

llavinji' provio\»sly strippoil to my tnuusoi-s, in oaso of aiviiloiJt, I 
now pulloil out. On jivttinj;' tnuu tho ohannol into tho bi\>kon wator 
au'ain. I lookoil ovor n\y shoulilor to wiuilwanl, ami saw that I w.is 
too lato. It. was oinnin^i? ! — tho ship was hiihlou ahvaily in tho 
horriblo ba/.o of it. I ^ii"v^t tho Kvjit's hoail ixnimi to pull Iviok 
ami I iliil pull lv;\ok, just insiilo tho oponiuji' in tho ivof whioh maiio 
tho n\outh o( tho ohantiol whon tho storn\ oamo ilown on mo liko 
iloath anil juil>i-n\ont. Tho Uvit filloil in an insta»\t ; anil I was 
tossiHl hoail ovor hools ii\to tho wator. Tho soa, whioh bu\^t i»\to 
nviiitiji" siuf npo»\ tho rvvks oti oithorsiilo. rushoil itv ono >i"ivat n^llor 
up tho iloop ohamiol Ix^tAvoon thorn, aiul ti>ok mo with it. If tho 



A MKSSAi;r. FKOM vnv. vSKA. 876 

mulortow, aftovw'jvnb, hud lastotl (ov \\i\\( a u\inuto. I vsliouM havo 
Kvn rarritHl into tho wltito \v;\ttM\ aiui Kvst. r>u( a v^ooimhI u^llor 
tollowoil tho th-st, almost on tl\o inv^t,*\nt, ami swopt mo niiht up v>n 
tho Ivaoh. I hail just stivniith onouijh to di^ii" n\y anns ami l(\i>'s 
woll into tho wot s^mvl : anil tliouiih I was takon Kiok with tho 
lv{\ok\vaixl shitY of it, 1 was not takon inti> tUv}> wator aii^ain. IVtoiv 
tho thin! i\>llor oan\o, I was out o( its ivaoh, ami was th>wj\ in a 
sort ot' swoon, on tho ilry sjuiil. 

Wlion 1 si\H Kiok to tho hollow in shoro, whoro 1 ha»l K^t"( my 
olothos luulor sholtor with tho storos, I t'oiunl Mr. riissoKl snuiily 
oivnolnnl \i\\ in tho ilviost plaoo, witli tho tarpaulin to oovor hitn. 

"Oh!" s,a)*s ho, in a stato ol' ijivat siu'priso, "you'iv not 
ilnnviuHir* "Nv\"says I ; "vini won't ^livt your (UmiMo allow- 
anoo, attor all." "How nuu'h shall I jivtr' says ho, ivnsing up 
auil lookinii" anxious. " Wnir tair half vsluuv of what is hoiv," 1 
answoivtl him. " .Vnd hvnv lonj? will that last mo'/" vsays l»o. 
"Tho fooil. it' you havo sonso onvuiiih to t^ko it out with what you 
may tind in this n\isonil>lo plaoo, huvly throo wooks," s,ays I ; "antl 
tho wator {\( you ovor ilrink any") al>o\it a tvn-tniiiht." M hoarinjj: 
that, ho toi^k tho K>ttlo out of his ptn-kot aiiiiin, anil put it to his 
lil>s. " lin ov^Ul to tho bonos," s,ays I. trowninii* at him t\n' a ilrop. 
" Auvl I'm warm \o tho man\>w." sjiys ho, ohuokliuii", :uul ham! 
insj mo tho bottlo on\pty. 1 pitohotl it away at luioo or tho 
tomptation to luvak it ovor his hoad mijiht havo Ivon too nuioh 
t'or n»o 1 pitohoil it away, and lookod into tho ntodioino ohost, to 
soo if thoi'i^ wjis a drop of poi>ponnint^ or anything" otnnfortiuij: of 
that sort, insido. Oi\ly thnv physio hotth^s woiv lotY in it^ all 
tluvo Iving noatly tiotl ov»m' with oilskin. (>no o( thon\ hold a 
stnmg whito liquor, snioUing liko hartshorn. Tho oihcv two 
wow lilloil with stutV in powdor, having tho namos ii\ printoil gil> 
Wrish. }>as(otl outsido. On looking a littlo i-losor, I foiuid. \\\u\cv 
somo bn>kon divisivMis of tho ohost, a sniall llask oovorotl with 
wii'kor work. "t«ingor Hrauvly " was writtoii with ptMi aiid ink on 
tho wirkor work, and tho tlask was tull ! 1 think that Mossod ilis- 
I'ovory savo<l n\o fivm shivtMing mysolf to j>iooos. Aftor a pull at 
tho tlask whioh matlo a now n\an o( mo, I put it away in my insido 
Inoast porkot ; Mr. (^lissohl watohing mo with givody oyos, but 
saying nothing. 

All this whilo, tho rain was rushing, tho wind n>aring. aiid tho 
soa t'rasliing, as if Noah's FKuul had oomo again. 1 sat oUvso 
ag^jiinst tho supoivarg\>. Uvauso \\c was in tho ilriost plai'(^ ; and 
puUod n»y fair sharo o( tho tarpaidin away fnun him, wln^thor ho 
likrd it or not. Ib^ by no n\oans likod it ; boing in that sort o( 
lialf-drunkon, halfsoWr stato {nWcv tinishing his bottlo), in whioh 



276 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

a man's temper is most easily upset by trifles. The upset of his 
temper showed itself in the way of small aggravations — of which 
I took no notice, till he suddenly bethought himself of angering 
me by going back again to that dispute about father, which had 
bred ill-blood between us on the day when we fii'st saw each other. 
If he had been a younger man, I am afraid I should have stopped 
him by a punch on the head. As it was, considering his age and 
the shame of this quarrelling betwixt us when we were both cast 
away together, I only warned him that I might punch his head, 
if he went on. It did just as well — and I'm glad now to think 
that it did. 

We were huddled so close together, that when he coiled himself 
up to sleep (with a growl), and when he did go to sleep (with a 
grunt), he growled and grunted into my ear. His rest, like the 
rest of all the regular drunkards I have ever met with, was broken. 
He ground his teeth, and talked in his sleep. Among the words 
he nnunbled to himself, I heard as plain as could be father's name. 
This vexed, but did not surprise me, seeing that he had been talk- 
ing of flxther before he dropped oft\ But when I made out next, 
among his mutterings and mumblings, the words "five hundred 
pound," spoken over and over again, with father's name, now be- 
fore, now after, now mixed in along with them, I got curious, and 
listened for more. My listening (and serve me right, you will 
say) came to nothing : he certainly talked on, but I couldn't make 
out a word more that he said. 

When he woke up, I told him plainly he had been talking in 
his sleep — and mightily taken aback he looked when he fii'st heard 
it. "What about?" says he. I made answer, "My father, and 
five hundred pounds ; and how do you come to couple them to- 
gether, I should like to know?" "I couldn't have coupled them," 
says he, in a great hurry — " what do I know about it ? I don't 
believe a man like your fiither ever had such a sum of money as 
that in all his life." " Don't you ? " says I, feeling the aggi-avation 
of him, in spite of myself; " I can just tell you my fother had such 
a sum when he was no older a man than I am — and saved it — 
and left it for a provision, in his will, to my mother, who has got 
it now — and, I say again, how came a stranger like you to be 
talking of it in your sleep ? " At hearing this, he went about on 
the other tack directly. " W^as that all your father left, after his 
debts were paid?" says he. "Are you very curious to know?' 
says I. He took no notice — he only persisted with his question. 
" Was it just five hundred pound, no more and no less ? " says he. 
"Suppose it was," saj's I; "what then?" "Oh nothing," says 
he, and turns sharp round from me and chuckles to himself. 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 277 

"Yoirre drunk." says I. ''Yes,'' says he; "that's it — stick to 
that — I'm druuk," — and he chuckles again. Try as I might, 
and threaten as I might, not another word on the matter of the 
five lumdred pound could I get from him. I bore it well in mind, 
though, for all that — it being one of my slow ways, not easily to 
forget anything that has once surprised me, and not to give up 
returning to it over and over again, as time and occasion may serve 
for the purpose. 

The hours wore on, and the storm raged on. We had our half 
rations of food, when hunger took us (I being much the hungrier 
of the two) : and slept, and gi'umbled, and ijuarrelled the weary 
time out somehow. Towards dusk the wind lessened ; and, when 
I got up out of the hollow to look out, there was a faint watery 
break in the western heavens. At times, through the watches of 
the long night, the stai's showed in patches for a little while, 
through the rents tliat opened and closed by fits in the black sky. 
"When I fell asleep towards the dawning, the wind had tallen to a 
moan, though the sea, slower to go down, sounded as loud as ever. 
From what I could make of the weather, the storm had, by that 
time, as good as blown itself out. 

I had been wise enough (knowing who was near me) to lay 
myself down, whenever I slept, on the side of me which was next 
to the fl:isk of ginger-brandy, stowed away in my breast-pocket. 
"VNTien I woke at sunrise, it was the supercargo's hand that roused 
me up, trying to ste;\l my fli\sk while I was asleep. I rolled him 
over he^idlong among the stores — out of which I had the humanity 
to pull him again, with my own hands. 

"I'll tell you what," says I, "if us two keep company any 
longer, we shan't get on smoothly together. YouVe the oldest 
man — and you stop here, where we know there is shelter. "\Ve 
will dinde the stores fiiirly, and I'll go and shift for myself at the 
other end of the island. Do you agree to that ? " 

" Yes," says he, "and the sooner the better." 

I left him for a minute, and went away to look out on the reef 
that had wrecked us. The spKnters of the Peruvian, scattered 
broadcast over the beach, or tossing up and down darkly, far out 
in the white surf, were all that remained to tell of the ship. I 
don't deny that my heart sank, when I looked at the place where 
she stnick, and saw nothing before me but sea and sky. 

But what was the use of standing and looking ? It was a deal 
better to rouse myself by doing something. I returned to Mr. 
Clissold — and then and there divided the stores into two equal 
parts, including everything down to the matches in my pocket. 
Of these parts I gave him first choice. I also left him the whole 



278 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

of the tarpaulin to himself — keeping in my own possession the 
medicine-chest, and the pistol ; which last I loaded with powder 
and shot, in case any sea-birds might fly within reach. When the 
division was made, and when I had moved my part out of his 
way, and out of his sight, I thought it uncivil to bear malice 
any longer, now that we had agreed to separate. We were cast 
away on a desert island, and we had death, as well as I could see, 
within about three weeks' hail of us — but that was no reason 
for not making things reasonably pleasant as long as we could. I 
was some time (in consequence of my natural slowness where mat- 
ters of seafaring duty don't happen to be concerned) before I came 
to this conclusion. When I did come to it, I acted on it. 

"Shake hands, before parting," I said, suiting the action to the 
word. 

" No," says he ; "I don't like you." 

" Please yourself," says I — and so we parted. 

Turning my back on the west, which was his territory accord- 
ing to agreement, I walked away towards the south-east, where 
the sides of the island rose highest. Here I found a sort of half 
rift, half cavern, in the rocky banks, which looked as likely a place 
as any other — and to this refuge I moved my share of the stores. 
I thatched it over as w^ell as I could with scrub, and heaped some 
loose stones at the mouth of it. At home, in England, I should 
have been ashamed to put my dog in such a place — but when a 
man believes his days to be numbered, he is not over-particular about 
his lodgings, and I was not over-particular about mine. 

When my work was done, the heavens were fair. I went up 
again to the high ground, to see what I could make out in the 
new clearness of the air. North, east, and west there was nothing 
but sea and sky — but, south I now saw land. It was high, and 
looked to be a matter of seven or eight miles off. Island or not, 
it must have been a good size for me to see it as I did. Known or 
not known to mariners, it was certainly big enough to have living 
creatures on it — animals or men, or both. If I had not lost the boat 
on my second attempt to reach the vessel, we might have easily got 
to it. But situated as we were now, with no wood to make a 
boat of but the scattered splinters from the ship, and with no tools 
to use even that much, there might just as well have been no land 
in sight at all, so far as we were concerned. The poor hope of a 
ship coming our road, was still the only hope left. To give us all 
the little chance we might get that way, I now looked about on 
the beach for the longest morsel of a wrecked spar that I could 
find ; planted it on the high ground ; and rigged up to it the one 
shirt I had on my back for a signal. While coming and going ot\ 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 279 

this job, I noted with great joy that rain water enough lay in the 
hollows of the rocks above the sea line, to save our small store of 
fresh water for a week at least. Thinking it only fair to the super- 
cargo to let him know what I had found out, I went to his terri- 
tories, after setting up the morsel of a spar, and discreetly shouted 
my news down to him without showing myself. " Keep to your 
own side ! " was all the thanks I got for this piece of civility. I 
went back to my own side immediately, and crawled into my little 
cavern, quite content to be alone. On that first night, strange as 
it seems now, I once or twice nearly caught myself feeling happy 
at the thought of being rid of Mr. Lawrence OMssold. 

According to my calculations — which were made by tying a 
fresh knot eveiy morning in a piece of marline — we two men were 
just a week, each on his own side of the island, without seeing or 
communicating, anyhow, with one another. The first half of the 
week, I had enough to do with cudgelling my brains for a means 
of helping ourselves, to keep my mind steady. 

I thought first of picking up all the longest bits of spars that 
had been cast ashore, lashing them together with ropes twisted out 
of the long grass of the island, and trusting to raft-navigation to 
get to that high land away in the south. But when I looked 
among the spars, there were not half a dozen of them left whole 
enough for the purpose. And even if there had been more, the 
short allowance of food would not have given me time sufiicient, 
or strength sufiicient, to gather the grass, to twist it into ropes, 
and to lash a raft together big enough and strong enough for us 
two men. There was nothing to be done, but to give up this 
notion— and I gave it up. The next chance I thought of was to 
keep a fire burning on the shore every night with the wood of the 
wreck, in case vessels at sea might notice it, on one side — or the 
people of the high land in the south (if the distance was not too 
great) might notice it, on the other. There was sense in this 
notion, and it could be turned to account the moment the wood 
was dry enough to burn. The wood got dry enough before the 
week was out. Whether it was the end of the stormy season in 
those latitudes, or whether it was only the shifting of the wind to 
the west, I don't know — but now, day after day, the heavens were 
clear and the sun shone scorching hot. The scrub " on the island 
(which was of no great account) dried up — but the fresh water in 
the hollows of the rocks (which was, on the other hand, a serious 
business) dried up too. Troubles seldom come alone ; and on the 
day when I made this discovery, I also found out that I had calcu- 
lated wrong about the food. Eke it out as I might, with scurvy 
grass and roots, there would not be above eight days more of it 



280 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

left when the first week was past — and, as for the fresh water, 
half a pint a day, unless more rain fell, would leave me at the end 
of my store, as nearly as I could guess, about the same time. 

This was a bad look-out — but I don't think the prospect of it 
upset me in my mind, so much as the having nothing to do. 
Except for the gathering of the wood, and the lighting of the sig- 
nal-fire, every night, I had no work at all, towards the end of the 
week, to keep me steady. I checked myself in thinking much 
about home, for fear of losing heart, and not holding out to the 
last, as became a man. For the same reasons I likewise kept my 
mind from raising hopes of help in me which were not likely to 
come true. What else was there to think about 1 Nothing but 
the man on the other side of the island — and be hanged to him ! 

I thought about those words I heard him say in his sleep ; I 
thought about how he was getting on by himself; how he liked 
nothing but water to drink, and little enough of that; how he 
was eking out his food ; whether he slept much or not ; whether 
he saw the smoke of my fire at night, or not ; whether he held up 
better or worse than I did ; whether he would be glad to see me, 
if I went to him to make it up ; whether he or I would die first ; 
whether if it was me, he would do for me, what I would have done 
for him — namely, bury him, with the last strength I had left. All 
these things, and lots more, kept coming and going in my mind, till 
I could stand it no longer. On the morning of the eighth day, I 
roused up to go to his territories, feeling it would do me good to 
see him and hear him, even if we quarrelled again the instant we 
set eyes on each other. 

I climbed up to the grassy mound — and, when I got there, what 
should I see but the supercargo himself, coming to my territories, 
and wandering up and down in the scrub through not knowing 
where to find them ! 

It almost knocked me over, when we met, the man was changed 
so. He looked eighty years old ; the little flesh he had on his 
miserable face hung baggy ; his blue spectacles had dropped down 
on his nose, and his eyes showed over them wild and red-rimmed ; 
his lips were black, his legs staggered under him. He came up to 
me with his eyes all of a glare, and put both his hands on my 
breast, just over the pocket in which I kept that flask of ginger- 
brandy which he had tried to steal from me. 

" Have you got any of it left ?" says he in a whisper. 

" About two mouthfuls," says I. 

"Give us one of them, for God's sake," says he. 

Giving him one of those mouthfuls was just about equal to giving 
liim a day of my life. In the case of a man I liked, I would not 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 281 

have thought twice about giving it. In the case of Mr. CHssold I 
did think twice. I would have been a better Christian, if I could 
— but just then, I couldn't. 

He thought I was going to say, No. His eyes got cunning 
directly. He reached his hands to my shoulders, and whispered 
these words in my ear. 

"I'll tell you what I know about the five hundred pounds, if 
you'll give me a drop." 

I determined to give it to him, and pulled out the flask. I took 
his hand, and poured the drop into the hollow of it, and held it for 
a moment. 

" Tell me first," I said, "and drink afterwards." 

He looked all round him, as if he thought there were people on 
the island to hear us. " Hush ! " he said, " let's whisper about 
it." The next question and answer that passed between us, was 
louder than before on my side, and softer than ever on his. This 
was the question : 

" What do you know about the five hundred pound ?" 

And this was the answer : 

''li'% Stolen Money!" 

My hand dropped away from his, as if he had shot me. He 
instantly fastened on the drop of liquor in the hollow of his hand, 
like a hungry wild beast on a bone, and then looked up for more. 
Something in my face (God knows what) seemed suddenly to 
frighten him out of his life. Before I could stir a step, or get a 
word out, down he dropped on his knees, whining and whimpering 
in the high grass at my feet. 

" Don't kill me ! " says he ; " I'm dying — I'll think of my poor 
soul. I'll repent while there's time — " 

Beginning in that way, he maundered awfully, grovelling down 
in the grass ; asking me every other minute for " a drop more, and 
a drop more," and talking as if he thought we were both in England. 
Out of his wanderings, his beseechings for another drop, and his 
miserable beggar's-petitions for his "poor soul," I gathered together 
these words — the same which I wrote down on the morsel of 
paper, and of which nine parts out of ten are now rubbed off" ! 

The first I made out — though not the first he said — was that 
some one, whom he spoke of as " the old man," was alive ; and 
" Lanrean " was the place he lived in. I was to go there, and ask, 
among the old men, for " Tregarthen " — 

(At the mention by me of the name of Tregarthen, my brother 
to my great surprise stopped me with a start ; made me say the 
name over more than once ; and then, for the first time, told me 
of the trouble about his sweetheart and his marriage. We waited 



282 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

a little to talk that matter over ; after which, I went on again with 
my story, in these words.) 

Well, as I made out from Clissold's wanderings, I was to go to 
Lanrean, to ask among the old men for Tregarthen, and to say to 
Tregarthen, "Clissold was the man. Clissold bore no malice: 
Clissold repented like a Christian, for the sake of his poor soul." 
No ! I was to say something else to Tregarthen. I was to say, 
" Look among the books ; look at the leaf you know of, and see for 
yourself it's not the right leaf to be there." No ! I was to say 
something else to Tregarthen. I was to say, " The right leaf is 
hidden, not burnt. Clissold had time for everything else, but no 
time to burn that leaf. Tregarthen came in when he had got the 
candle lit to burn it. There was just time to let it drop from 
under his hand into the great crack in the desk, and then he was 
ordered abroad by the House, and there was no chance of doing 
more." No ! I was to say none of these things to Tregarthen. 
Only this instead : — " Look in Clissold's desk — and, if you blame 
anybody, blame miser Ray brock for driving him to it." And, oh, 
another drop — for the Lord's sake, give him another drop ! 

So he went on, over and over again, till I found voice enough to 
speak and stop him. 

" Get up, and go ! " I said to the miserable wretch. " Get back 
to your own side of the island, or I may do you a mischief, in spite 
of my own self." 

" Give me the other drop, and I will " — was all the answer I 
could get from him. 

I threw him the flask. He pounced upon it with a howl. I 
turned my back — for I could look at him no longer — and climbed 
down again to my cavern on the beach. 

I sat down alone on the sand, and tried to quiet myself fit to 
think about what I had heard. That father could ever have wil- 
fully done anything unbecoming his character as an honest man, 
was what I wouldn't believe, in the first place. And that the 
wretched brute I had just parted from was in his right senses, was 
what I wouldn't believe, in the second place. What I had myself 
seen of drinkers, at sea and ashore, helped me to understand the 
condition into which he had fallen. I knew that when a man who 
has been a drunkard for years, is suddenly cut off" his drink, he drops 
to pieces like, body and mind, for the want of it. I had also heard 
ship-doctors talk, by some name of their own, of a drink-madness, 
which we ignorant men call the Horrors. And I made it out, easy 
enough, that I had seen the supercargo in the first of these condi- 
tions ; and that if we both lived long enough without help coming 
to us, I might soon see him in the second. But when I tried to 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 283 

get farther, and settle how much of what I had heard was wander- 
ings and how much truth, and what it meant if any of it was truth, 
my slowness got in my way again ; and where a quicker man might 
liave made up his mind in an hour or two, I was all day, in sore 
distress, making up mine. The upshot of what I settled with my- 
self, was, in two words, this : — Having mother's writing-case handy 
about me, I determined first to set down for my own self's reminder, 
all that I had heard. Second, to clear the matter up if I ever got 
back to England alive ; and, if wrong had been done to that old 
man, or anybody else, in father's name (without father's knowledge), 
to make restoration for his sake. 

All that day I neither saw nor heard more of the supercargo. 
I passed a miserable night of it, after writing my memorandum, 
fighting with my loneliness and my own thoughts. The remem- 
brance of those words in father's will, saying that the five hundred 
pound was money which he had once run a risk with, kept putting 
into my mind suspicions I was ashamed of When daylight came, 
I almost felt as if I was going to have the Horrors too, and got up 
to walk them off, if possible, in the morning air. 

I kept on the northern side of the island, walking backwards 
and forwards for an hour or more. Then I returned to my cavern ; 
and the first thing I saw, on getting near it, was other footsteps 
than mine marked on the sand. I suspected at once that the 
supercargo had been lurking about watching me, instead of going 
back to his own side; and that, in my absence, he had been at 
his thieving tricks again. 

The stores were what I looked at first. The food he had not 
touched; but the water he had either drunk or wasted — there was 
not half a pint of it left. The medicine-chest was open, and the 
bottle with the hartshorn was gone. When I looked next for the 
pistol, which I had loaded with powder and shot for the chance 
of bird-shooting that never came, the pistol was gone too. After 
making this last discovery, there was but one thing to be done — 
namely — to find out where he was, and to take the pistol away 
from him. 

I set off to search first on the western side. It was a beautiful, 
clear, calm, sunshiny morning ; and as I crossed the island, looking 
out on my left hand and my right, I stopped on a sudden, with my 
heart in my mouth, as the saying is. Something caught my eye, 
far out at sea, in the north-west. I looked again — and there, as 
true as the heavens above me, I saw a ship, with the sunlight on 
her topsails, hull down, on the water-line in the offing ! 

All thought of the errand I was bent on, went out of my mind 
in an instant. I ran as fast as my weak legs would carry me to 



284 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

the northern beach ; gathered up the broken wood which was still 
lying there plentifully, and, with the help of the dry scrub, lit the 
largest fire I had made yet. This was the only signal it was in 
my power to make that there were men on the island. The fire, 
in the bright daylight, would never be visible to the ship ; but the 
smoke curling up from it, in the clear sky, might be seen, if they 
had a look-out at the mast-head. 

While I was still feeding the fire, and so wrapped up in doing 
it, that I had neither eyes nor ears for anything else, I heard the 
supercargo's voice on a sudden at my back, he had stolen on me 
along the sand. When I faced him, he was swinging his arms 
about in the air, and saying to himself over and over again, "I see 
the ship. I see the ship ! " 

After a little, he came close up to me. By the look of him, he 
had been drinking the hartshorn, and it had strung him up a bit, 
body and mind for the time. He kept his right hand behind him, 
as if he were hiding something. I suspected that "something" to 
be the pistol I was in search of. 

" Will the ship come here 1 " says he. 

"Yes, if they see the smoke," says I, keeping my eye on him. 

He waited a bit, frowning suspiciously, and looking hard at me 
all the time. 

"What did I say to you yesterday?" he asked. 

"What I have got written down here," I made answer, smack- 
ing my hand over the writing-case in my breast-pocket; "and what 
I mean to put to the proof, if the ship sees us and we get back to 
England." 

He whipped his right hand round from behind him, like light- 
ning; and snapped the pistol at me. It missed fire. I wrenched 
it from him in a moment, and was just within one hair's breadth 
of knocking him on the head with the butt-end afterwards. I 
lifted my hand — then thought better, and dropped it again. 

" No," says I, fixing my eyes on him steadily; "I'll wait till the 
ship finds us." 

He slunk away from me ; and, as he slunk, looked hard into the 
fire. He stopped a minute so, thinking to himself — then he looked 
back at me again, A\ath some mad mischief in him, that twinkled 
through his blue spectacles, and grinned on his dry black lips. 

"The ship shall never find ^ou,'' he said. With which words, 
he turned himself about towards his own side of the island, and 
left me. 

He only meant that saying to be a threat — but, bird of ill-omen 
that he was, it turned out as good as a prophecy ! All my hard work 
with the fire proved work in vain ; all hope was quenched in me, 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 285 

long before the embers I had set light to were burnt out. Whether 
the smoke was seen or not from the vessel, is more than I can tell. 
I only know that she had filled away on the other tack, not ten 
minutes after the supercargo left ma In less than an hour's time 
the last glimpse of the bright topsails had vanished out of view. 

I went back to my cavern — which was now likelier than ever 
to be my grave as well. In that hot climate, with all the moist- 
ure on the island dried up, with not quite so much as a tumbler- 
ful of fresh water left, with my strength wasted by living on 
half-rations of food — two days more at most would see me out. 
It was hard enough for a man at my age, with-all that I had left 
at home to make life precious, to die such a death as was now be- 
fore me. It was harder still to have the sting of death sharpened 

— as I felt it, then — by what had just happened between the 
supercargo and myself. There was no hope, now, that his wander- 
ings, the day before, had more falsehood than truth in them. The 
secret he had let out was plainly true enough and serious enough 
to have scared him into attempting my life, rather than let me 
keep possession of it, when there was a chance of the ship rescuing 
us. That secret had father's good name mixed up with it — and 
here was I, instead of clearing the villanous darkness from oft' of 
it, carrying it with me, black as ever, into my grave. 

It was out of the horror I felt at doing that, and out of the 
yearning of my heart towards you, Alfred, when I thought of it, 
that the notion came to comfort me of writing the Message at the 
top of the paper, and of committing it in the bottle to the sea. 
Drowning men, they say, catch at straws — and the straw of com- 
fort I caught at was the one chance in ten thousand, but the Mes- 
sage might float till it was picked up, and that it might reach you. 
My mind might, or might not, have been failing me, by this time 

— but it is true, either way, that I did feel comforted when I had 
emptied one of the two bottles left in the medicine-chest, and had 
put the paper inside, had tied the stopper carefully over with oil- 
skin, and had laid the whole down, in my pocket, ready, when I 
felt my time coming, to drop into the sea. I was rid of the secret, 
I thought to myself ; and if it pleased God, I was rid of it, Alfred, 
to you. 

The day waned, and the sun set, all cloudless and golden, in a 
dead calm. There was not a ripple anywhere on the long oily 
heaving of the sea. Before night came I strengthened myself with 
a better meal than usual, as to food — where was the use of keep- 
ing meat and biscuit when I had not water enough to last along 
with them % When the stars came out and the moon rose, I gath- 
ered the wood together and lit the signal fire, according to custom, 



286 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

on the beach outside my cavern. I had no hope from it — but 
the fire was company to me : the looking into it quieted my 
thoughts, and the crackling of it was a relief in the silence. I 
don't know why it was, but the breathless stillness of the night 
had something awful in it, and went near to frighten me. 

The moon got high in the heavens, and the light of her lay all 
in a flood on the sands before me, on the rocks that jutted out 
from it, and on the calm sea beyond. I was thinking of Margaret 
— wondering if the moon was shining on our little bay at Steep- 
ways, and if she was looking at it too — when I saw a mans 
shadow steal over the white of the sand. He was lurking near 
me again ! In a minute he came into view. The moonshine 
glinted on his blue spectacles, and glimmered on his bald head. 
He stooped as he passed by the rocks and looked about for a loose 
stone ; he found a large one, and came straight with it, on tip-toe, 
up to the fire. I showed myself to him on a sudden, in the red of 
the flames, with the pistol in my hand. He dropped the stone, 
and shrank back, at the sight of it. When he was close to the 
sea, he stopped, and screamed out at me, " The ship's coming ! 
The ship's coming ! The ship shall never find you^ That notimi 
of the ship, and that other notion of killing me before help came, 
seemed never to have left him. When he turned, and went back 
by the way he had come, he was still shouting out those same 
words. For quarter of an hour or more, I heard him, till the 
silence swallowed up his ravings, and led me back again to those 
thoughts of home. 

Those thoughts kept with me, till the moon was on the wane. 
It was darker now, and stiller than ever. I had not fed the signal 
fire for half an hour or more, and had roused myself up, at the 
mouth of the cavern, to do it, when I saw the dying gleams of 
moonshine, over the sea on either side of me change colour, and 
turn red. Black shadows, as from low-flying clouds, swept after 
each other over the deepened redness. The air grew hot — a sound 
came nearer and nearer, till above me and behind me, like the rush 
of wind and the roar of water, both together, and both far off". I 
ran out on to the sand, and looked back. The island was on fire. 

On fire at the point opposite to me — on fire in one great sheet 
of flame that stretched right across the island, and bore down on 
me steadily before the light westerly wind which was blowing at 
the time. Only one hand could have kindled that terrible flame, 
the hand of the lost wretch who had left me, with the mad threat 
on his lips and the murderous notion of burning me out of my 
refuge, working in his crazy brain. On his side of the island, 
(where the fire had begun), the dry grass and scrub grew all round 



A MESSAGE EROM THE SEA. 287 

the little hollow in the earth which I had left for him for his place 
of refuge. If he had had a thousand lives to lose, he would have 
lost that thousand already. 

Having nothing to feed on but the dry scrub, the flames swept 
forward with such a frightful swiftness, that I had barely time, 
after mastering my own scattered senses, to turn back into the 
cavern to get my last drink of water, and my last mouthful of food 
before I heard the fiery scorch crackling over the thatched roof 
which my own hands had raised. I ran across to the spur of rock 
which jutted out into the sea, and there crouched down on the 
farthest edge I could reach to. There was nothing for the fire to 
lay hold of between me and the top of the island bank. I was far 
enough away to be out of the lick of the flames, and low enough 
down to get air under the sweep of the smoke. You may well 
wonder why, with death by starvation threatening me close at 
hand, I should have schemed and struggled as I did, to save myself 
from a quicker death by suffocation in the smoke. I can only 
answer to that, that I wonder too — but so it was. 

The flames eat their way to the edge of the bank, and lapped 
over it as if they longed to lick me up. The heat scorched nearer 
than I had thought, and the smoke poured nearer and thicker. I 
lay down sick and weak on the rock, with my face close over the 
calm cool water. When I ventured to lift myself up again, the 
top of the island was of a ruby red, the smoke rose slowly in little 
streams, and the air about was quivering with the heat. While I 
looked at it, I felt a kind of singing and surgeing in my head, and 
a deadly faintness and coldness crept over me, I took the bottle 
that held the message from my pocket, and dropped it into the sea 
— then crawled a little way back over the rocks, and fell forward 
on them before I could get as far as the sand. The last I remem- 
ber was trying to say my prayers, — losing the words — losing my 
sight — losing the sense of where I was — losing everything. 

The day was breaking again, when I was roused up by feeling 
rough hands on me. Naked savages — some on the rocks, some in 
the water, some in two long canoes, were clamouring and crowding 
about on all sides. They bound me, and took me off at once to one 
of the canoes. The other kept company, and both were paddled 
back to that high land which I had seen in the south. Death had 
passed me by once more — and captivity had come in its place. 

The story of my life among the savages, having no concern with 
the matter now in hand, may be passed by here in a few words. 
They had seen the fire on the island ; and paddling over to recon- 
noitre, had found me. Not one of them had ever set eyes on a 



288 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

white man before. I was taken away to be shown about among 
them for a curiosity. When they were tired of showing me, they 
spared my life, finding my knowledge and general handiness as a 
civilised man useful to them in various ways. I lost all count of 
time in my captivity — and can only guess now, that it lasted more 
than one year and less than two. I made two attempts to escape, 
each time in a canoe, and was baulked in both. Nobody at home 
in England would ever, as I believe, have seen me again, if an out- 
ward bound vessel had not touched at the little desert island for 
fresh water. Finding none there, she came on to the territory of 
the savages (which was an island too). When they took me on 
board, I looked little better than a savage myself, and could hardly 
talk my own language. By the help of the kindness shown to me, 
I was right again by the time we spoke the first ship homeward 
bound. To that vessel I was transferred ; and, in her, I worked 
my passage back to Falmouth. 



Chapter V. 
the restitution. 

Captain Jorgan, up and out betimes, had put the whole village 
of Lanrean under an amicable cross-examination, and was returning 
to the King Arthur's Arms to breakfast, none the wiser for his 
trouble, when he beheld the young fisherman advancing to meet 
him, accompanied by a stranger. A glance at this stranger assured 
the captain that he could be no other than the seafaring man ; and 
the captain was about to hail him as a fellow-craftsman, when the 
two stood still and silent before the captain, and the captain stood 
still, silent and wondering before them. 

"Why, what's this?" cried the captain, when at last he broke 
the silence. " You two are alike. You two are much alike ! 
What's this?" 

Not a word was answered on the other side, until after the sea- 
faring brother had got hold of the captain's right hand, and the 
fisherman brother had got hold of the captain's left hand ; and if 
ever the captain had had his fill of haud-sliaking, from his birth to 
that hour, he had it then. And presently up and spoke the two 
brothers, one at a time, two at a time, two dozen at a time for the 
bewilderment into which they plunged the captain, until he gradually 
had Hugh Raybrock's deliverance made clear to him, and also un- 
ravelled the fact that the person referred to in the half-obliterated 
paper was Tregarthen himself. 

"Formerly, dear Captain Jorgan," said Alfred, "of Lanrean, 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 289 

you recollect ? Kitty and her father came to live at Steepways 
after Hugh shipped on his last voyage." 

"Ay, ay!" cried the captain, fetching a breath. ^^ Noiv you 
have me in tow. Then your brother here don't know his sister-in- 
law that is to be so much as by name ? " 

" Never saw her ; never heard of her ! " 

" Ay, ay, ay ! " cried the captain. " Why then we every one go 
back together — paper, writer, and all — and take Tregarthen into 
the secret we kept from him 1 " 

"Surely," said Alfred, "we can't help it now. We must go 
through with our duty." 

" Not a doubt," returned the captain. " Give me an arm apiece, 
and let us set this ship-shape." 

So walking up and down in the shrill wind on the wild moor, 
while the neglected breakfast cooled within, the captain and the 
brothers settled their course of action. 

It was that they should all proceed by the quickest means they 
could secure to Barnstaple, and there look over the father's books 
and papers in the lawyer's keeping ; as Hugh had proposed to him- 
self to do if ever he reached home. That, enlightened or un- 
enlightened, they should then return to Steepways and go straight 
to Mr. Tregarthen, and tell him all they knew, and see what came 
of it, and act accordingly. Lastly, that when they got there they 
should enter the village with all precautions against Hugh's being 
recognised by any chance ; and that to the captain should be con- 
signed the task of preparing his wife and mother for his restoration 
to this life. 

"For you see," quoth Captain Jorgan, touching the last head, 
"it requires caution anyway, great joys being as dangerous as 
great griefs, if not more dangerous, as being more uncommon 
(and therefore less provided against) in this round world of ours. 
And besides, I should like to free my name with the ladies, and 
take you home again at your brightest and luckiest ; so don't let's 
throw away a chance of success." 

The captain was highly lauded by the brothers for his kind inter- 
est and foresight. 

" And now stop ! " said the captain, coming to a standstill, and 
looking from one brother to the other, with quite a new rigging of 
wrinkles about each eye; "you are of opinion," to the elder, "that 
you are ra'ather slow ? " 

" I assure you I am very slow," said the honest Hugh. 

" Wa'al," replied the captain, "I assure you that to the best of 
my belief I am ra'ather smart. Now a slow man ain't good at quick 
business, is he 1 " 



290 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

That was clear to both. 

" You," said the captain, turning to the younger brother, "are a 
little in love ; ain't you ? " 

" Not a little, Captain Jorgan." 

" Much or little, you're sort preoccupied ; ain't you ? " 

It was impossible to be denied. 

"And a sort preoccupied man ain't good at quick business, is 
he 1 " said the captain. 

Equally clear on all sides. 

"Now," said the captain, " I ain't in love niyself, and I've made 
many a smart run across the ocean, and I should like to carry on 
and go ahead with this affair of yours and make a run slick through 
it. Shall I try ? Will you hand it over to me 1 " 

Jhey were both delighted to do so, and thanked him heartily. 

"Good," said the captain, taking out his watch. " This is half- 
past eight A.M., Friday morning. I'll jot that down, and we'll 
compute how many hours we've been out when we run into your 
mother's Post-office. There ! The entry's made, and now we go 
ahead." 

They went ahead so well that before the Barnstaple lawyer's 
office was open next morning, the captain was sitting whistling on 
the step of the door, waiting for the clerk to come down the street 
with his key and open it. But instead of the clerk there came the 
master, with whom the captain fraternised on the spot to an extent 
that utterly confounded him. 

As he personally knew both Hugh and Alfred, there was no dif- 
ficulty in obtaining immediate access to* such of the father's papers 
as were in his keeping. These were chiefly old letters and cash ac- 
counts ; from which the captain, with a shrewdness and despatch 
that left the lawyer far behind, established with perfect clearness, 
by noon, the following particulars : 

That one Lawrence Clissold had borrowed of the deceased, at a 
time when he was a thriving young tradesman in the town of Barn- 
staple, the sum of five hundred pounds. That he had borrowed it 
on the written statement that it was to be laid out in furtherance 
of a speculation which he expected would raise him to independence ; 
he being, at the time of writing that letter, no more than a clerk in 
the house of Dringworth Brothers, America-square, London. That 
the money was borrowed for a stipulated period ; but that, when the 
term was out, the aforesaid speculation failed, and Clissold was 
without means of repayment. That, hereupon, he had written to 
his creditor, in no very persuasive terms, vaguely requesting further 
time. That the creditor had refused this concession, declaring that 
he could not afford delay. That Clissold then paid the debt, accom- 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 291 

panying the remittance of the money with an angry letter describing 
it as having been advanced by a relative to save him from ruin. 
That, in acknowledging the receipt, Raybrock had cautioned Clissold 
to seek to borrow money of him no more, as he would never so risk 
money again. 

Before the lawyer, the captain said never a word in reference to 
these discoveries. But when the papers had been put back in their 
box, and he and his two companions were well out of the oflQce, his 
right leg suffered for it, and he said, 

" So far this run's begun with a fair wind and a prosperous; for 
don't you see that all this agrees with that dutiful trust in his father 
maintained by the slow member of the Raybrock family ? " 

Whether the brothers had seen it before or no, they saw it now. 
Not that the captain gave them much time to contemplate the state 
of things at their ease, for he instantly whipped them into a chaise 
again, and bore them off to Steepways. Although the afternoon was 
but just beginning to decline when they reached it, and it was broad 
daylight, still they had no difficulty, by dint of muffling the returned 
sailor up, and ascending the village rather than descending it, in 
reaching Tregarthen's cottage unobserved. Kitty was not' visible, 
and they surprised Tregarthen sitting writing in the small bay-win- 
dow of his little room. 

" Sir," said the captain, instantly shaking hands with him, pen 
and all, " I'm glad to see you, sir. How do you do, sir ? I told 
you you'd think better of me by-and-bye, and I congratulate you on 
going to do it." 

Here the captain's eye fell on Tom Pettifer, Ho, engaged in pre- 
paring some cookery at the fire. 

" That crittur," said the captain, smiting his leg, " is a born stew- 
ard, and never ought to have been in any other way of life. Stop 
where you are, Tom, and make yourself useful. Now, Tregarthen, 
I'm going to try a chair." 

Accordingly the captain drew one close to him, and went on : 

" This loving member of the Raybrock family you know, sir. 
This slow member of the same family you don't know, sir. Wa'al, 
these two are brothers, — fact ! Hugh's come to life again, and 
here he stands. Now see here, my friend ! You don't want to be 
told that he was cast away, but you do want to be told (for there's 
a purpose in it) that he was cast away with another man. That 
man by name was Lawrence Clissold." 

At the mention of this name Tregarthen started and changed 
colour. "What's the matter? " said the captain. 

" He was a fellow-clerk of mine thirty — five and thirty — years 



292 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

"True," said the captain, immediately catching at the clew: 
" Dringworth Brothers, America-square, London city." 

The other started again, nodded, and said, " That was the house." 

" Now," pursued the captain, " between those two men cast away 
there arose a mystery concerning the round sum of five hundred 
pound." 

Again Tregarthen started, changing colour. Again the captain 
said, "What's the matter?" 

As Tregarthen only answered, "Please to go on," the captain re- 
counted, very tersely and plainly, the nature of Clissold's wander- 
ings on the barren island, as he had condensed them in his mind 
from the seafaring man. Tregarthen became greatly agitated during 
this recital, and at length exclaimed, — 

" Clissold was the man who ruined me ! I have suspected it for 
many a long year, and now I know it." 

" And how," said the captain, drawing his chair still closer to 
Tregarthen, and clapping his hand upon his shoulder, — " how may 
you know it ? " 

" When we were fellow-clerks," replied Tregarthen, "in that Lon- 
don house, it was one of my duties to enter daily in a certain book 
an account of the sums received that day by the firm, and afterward 
paid into the bankers'. One memorable day, — a Wednesday, the 
black day of my life, — among the sums I so entered was one of 
five hundred pounds." 

"I begin to make it out," said the captain. "Yes?" 

" It was one of Clissold's duties to copy from this entry a mem- 
orandum of the sums which the clerk employed to go to the 
bankers' paid in there. It was my duty to hand the money to 
Clissold ; it was Clissold's to hand it to the clerk, with that mem- 
orandum of his writing. On that Wednesday I entered a sum of 
five hundred pounds received. I handed that sum, as I handed 
the other sums in the day's entry, to Clissold. I was absolutely 
certain of it at the time ; I have been absolutely certain of it ever 
since. A sum of five hundred pounds was afterward found by the 
house to have been that day wanting from the bag, from Clissold's 
memorandum, and from the entries in my book. Clissold, being 
questioned, stood upon his perfect clearness in the matter, and 
emphatically declared that he asked no better than to be tested 
by ' Tregarthen's book.' My book was examined, and the entry of 
five hundred pounds was not there." 

"How not there," said the captain, "when you made it your- 
self?" 

Tregarthen continued : 

" I was then questioned. Had I made the entry ? Certainly 



A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 293 

I had. The house produced my book, and it was not there. I 
could not deny my book ; I could not deny my writing. I knew 
there must be forgery by some one ; but the writing was wonder- 
fully Hke mine, and I could impeach no one if the house could not. 
I was required to pay the money back. I did so ; and I left the 
house, almost broken-hearted, rather than remain there, — even if 
I could have done so, — with a dark shadow of suspicion always 
on me. I returned to my native place, Lanrean, and remained 
there, clerk to a mine, until I was appointed to my little post 
here." 

"I well remember," said the captain, "that I told you that if 
you had no experience of ill judgments on deceiving appearances, 
you were a lucky man. You went hurt at that, and I see why. 
I'm sorry." 

" Thus it is," said Tregarthen. " Of my own innocence I have of 
course been sure ; it has been at once my comfort and my trial. 
Of Clissold I have always had suspicions almost amounting to 
certainty ; but they have never been confirmed until now. For 
my daughter's sake and for my own I have carried this subject in 
my own heart, as the only secret of my life, and have long believed 
that it would die with me." 

"Wa'al, my good sir," said the captain cordially, "the present 
question is, and will be long, I hope, concerning living, and not 
dying. Now, here are our two honest friends, the loving Raybrock 
and the slow. Here they stand, agreed on one point, on which 
I'd back 'em round the world, and right across it from north to 
south, and then again from east to west, and through it, from your 
deepest Cornish mine to China. It is, that they will never use 
this same so-often-mentioned sum of money, and that restitution 
of it must be made to you. These two, the loving member and 
the slow, for the sake of the right and of their father's memory, 
will have it ready for you to-morrow. Take it, and ease their 
minds and mine, and end a most unfort'nate transaction." 

Tregarthen took the captain by the hand, and gave his hand to 
each of the young men, but positively and finally answered No. 
He said, they trusted to his word, and he was glad of it, and at 
rest in his mind ; but there was no proof, and the money must 
remain as it was. All were very earnest over this ; and earnest- 
ness in men, when they are right and true, is so impressive, that 
Mr. Pettifer deserted his cookery and looked on quite moved. 

"And so," said the captain, "so we come — as that la^vyer- 
crittur over yonder where we were this morning might — to mere 
proof ; do we 1 We must have it ; must we 1 How 1 From this 
Clissold's wanderings, and from what you say, it ain't hard to 



294 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

make out that there was a neat forgery of your writing committed 
by the too smart rowdy that was grease and ashes when I made 
his acquaintance, and a substitution of a forged leaf, in your book 
for a real and true leaf torn out. Now was that real and true 
leaf then and there destroyed ? No, — for says he, in his drunken 
way, he slipped it into a crack in his own desk, because you came 
into the office before there was time to burn it, and could never 
get back to it arterwards. Wait a bit. Where is that desk now? 
Do you consider it likely to be in America-square, London city ? " 

Tregarthen shook his head. 

" The house has not, for years, transacted business in that place. 
I have heard of it, and read of it, as removed, enlarged, every way 
altered. Things alter so fast in these times." 

"You think so," returned the captain, with compassion; "but 
you should come over and see me afore you talk about that. 
Wa'al, now. This desk, this paper, — this paper, this desk," 
said the captain, ruminating and Avalking about, and looking, in 
his uneasy abstraction, into Mr. Pettifer's hat on a table, among 
other things. " This desk, this paper, — this paper, this desk," 
the captain continued, nuising and roaming about the room, " I'd 
give — " 

However, he gave nothing, but took up his steward's hat 
instead, and stood looking into it, as if he had just come into 
church. After that he roamed again, and again said, " This desk, 
belonging to this house of Dringworth Brothers, America-square, 
London city — " 

Mr. Pettifer, still strangely moved, and now more moved than 
before, cut the captain otf as he backed across the room, and 
bespake him thus : 

" Captain Jorgan, I have been wishful to engage your attention, 
but I couldn't do it. I am unwilling to interrupt Captain Jorgan, 
but I must do it. / know something about that house." 

The captain stood stock-still and looked at him, — with his 
(Mr. Pettifer's) hat under his arm. 

"You're aware," pursued his steward, "that I was once in the 
broking business. Captain Jorgan 1 " 

"I was aware," said the captain, "that you had failed in that 
calling, and in half the businesses going, Tom." 

" Not quite so. Captain Jorgan ; but I failed in the broking 
business. I was partners with my brother, sir. There was a sale 
of old office furniture at Dringworth Brothers' when the house was 
moved from America-square, and me and my brother made what 
we call in the trade a Deal there, sir. And 111 make bold to say, 
sir, that the only thing I ever had from my brother, or from any 






A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 295 



relation, — for my relations have mostly taken property from me 
instead of giving me any, — Avas an old desk we bought at that 
same sale, with a crack in it. My brother wouldn't have given 
me even that, when we broke partnership, if it had been worth 
anything." 

" Where is that desk now ? " said the captain. 

"Well, Captain Jorgan," replied the steward, "I couldn't say 
for certain where it is now ; but when I saw it last, — which was 
last time we were outward bound, — it was at a very nice lady's 
at Wapping, along with a little chest of mine which was detained 
for a small matter of a bill owing." 

The captain, instead of paying that rapt attention to his steward 
which was rendered by the other three persons present, went to 
church again, in respect of the steward's hat. And a most es- 
pecially agitated and memorable face the captain produced from it, 
after a short pause. 

" Now, Tom," said the captain, " I spoke to you, when we first 
came here, respecting your constitutional weakness on the subject 
of sunstroke." 

"You did, sir." 

"Will my slow friend," said the captain, "lend me his arm, or 
I shall sink right back'ards into this blessed steward's cookery. 
Now, Tom," pursued the captain, when the required assistance was 
given, "on your oath as a steward, didn't you take that desk to 
pieces to make a better one of it, and put it together fresh, — or 
something of the kind 1 " 

"On my oath I did, sir," replied the steward. 

" And by the blessing of Heaven, my friends, one and all," cried 
the captain, radiant with joy, — "of the Heaven that put it into 
this Tom Pettifer's head to take so much care of his head against 
the bright sun, — he lined his hat with the original leaf in Tre- 
garthen's writing, — and here it is ! " 

With that the captain, to the utter destruction of Mr. Pettifer's 
favourite hat, produced the book-leaf, very much worn, but still 
legible, and gave both his legs such tremendous slaps that they 
were heard far off in the bay, and never accounted for. 

"A quarter past five p.m.," said the captain, pulling out his 
watch, " and that's thirty-three hours and a quarter in all, and a 
pretty run ! " 

How they were all overpowered with delight and triumph ; how 
the money was restored, then and there, to Tregarthen ; how Tre- 
garthen, then and there, gave it all to his daughter; how the 
captain undertook to go to Dringworth Brothers and re-establish 
the reputation of their forgotten old clerk; how Kitty came in. 



296 A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 

and was nearly torn to pieces, and the marriage was reappointed, 
needs not to be told. Nor how she and the young fisherman went 
home to the Post-office to prepare the way for the captain's coming, 
by declaring him to be the mightiest of men, who had made all 
their fortunes, — and then dutifully withdrew together, in order 
that he might have the domestic coast entirely to himself. How 
he availed himself of it is all that remains to tell. 

Deeply delighted with his trust, and putting his heart into it, 
he raised the latch of the Post-office parlour where Mrs. Raybrock 
and the young widow sat, and said, — 

"May I come in?" 

" Sure you may. Captain Jorgan ! " replied the old lady. "And 
good reason you have to be free of the house, though you have not 
been too well used in it by some who ought to have known better. 
I ask your pardon." 

"No you don't, ma'am," said the captain, " for I won't let you. 
Wa'al, to be sure ! " 

By this time he had taken a chair on the hearth between them. 

" Never felt such an evil spirit in the whole course of my life ! 
. There ! I tell you ! I could a'most have cut my own connection. 
Like the dealer in my country, away West, who, when he had let 
himself be outdone in a bargain, said to himself, ' Now I tell you 
what ! I'll never speak to you again.' And he never did, but 
joined a settlement of oysters, and translated the multiplication 
table into their language, — which is a fact that can be proved. 
If you doubt it, mention it to any oyster you come across, and see 
if he'll have the face to contradict it." 

He took the child from her mother's lap and set it on his knee. 

" Not a bit afraid of me now, you see. Knows I am fond of 
small people. I have a child, and she's a girl, and I sing to her 
sometimes." 

"What do you sing? " asked Margaret. 

"Not a long song, my dear. 

Silas Jorgan 
Played the organ. 

That's about all. And sometimes I tell her stories, — stories of 
sailors supposed to be lost, and recovered after all hope was aban- 
doned." Here the captain musingly went back to his song, — 

Silas Jorgan 
Played the organ ; 

repeating it with his eyes on the fire, as he softly danced the child 
on his knee. For he felt that Margaret had stopped working. 






A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 297 

"Yes," said the captain, still looking at the fire, "I make up 
stories and tell 'em to that child. Stories of shipwreck on desert 
islands, and long delay in getting back to civilised lands. It is to 
stories the like of that, mostly, that 

Silas Jorgan 
Plays the organ." 

There was no light in the room but the light of the fire ; for 
the shades of night were on the village, and the stars had begun 
to peep out of the sky one by one, as the houses of the village 
peeped out from among the foliage when the night departed. The 
captain felt that Margaret's eyes were upon him, and thought it 
discreetest to keep his own eyes on the fire. 

"Yes; I make 'em up," said the captain. "I make up stories 
of brothers brought together by the good providence of God, — of 
sons brought back to mothers, husbands brought back to wives, 
fathers raised from the deep, for little children like herself." 

Margaret's touch was on his arm, and he could not choose but 
look round now. Next moment her hand moved imploringly to 
his breast, and she was on her knees before him, — supporting the 
mother, who was also kneeling. 

"What's the matter?" said the captain. "What's the matter? 

Silas Jorgan 
Played the — " 

- Their looks and tears were too much for him, and he could not 
finish the song, short as it was. 

"Mistress Margaret, you have borne ill fortune well. Could 
you bear good fortune equally well, if it was to come ? " 

" I hope so. I thankfully and humbly and earnestly hope so ! " 

"Wa'al, my dear," said the captain, "p'r'haps it has come. 
He's — don't be frightened — shall I say the word — " 

"Alive?" 

" Yes ! " 

The thanks they fervently addressed to Heaven were again too 
much for the captain, who openly took out his handkerchief and 
dried his eyes. 

" He's no further off," resumed the captain, " than my country. 
Indeed, he's no further off than his own native country. To tell 
you the truth, he's no further off than Falmouth. Indeed, I doubt 
if he's quite so fur. Indeed, if you was sure you could bear it 
nicely, and I was to do no more than whistle for him — " 

The captain's trust was discharged. A rush came, and they 
were all together again. 



298 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

This was a fine opportunity for Tom Pettifer to appear with a 
tumbler of cold water, and he presently appeared with it, and 
administered it to the ladies ; at the same time soothing them, and 
composing their dresses, exactly as if they had been passengers 
crossing the Channel. The extent to which the captain slapped 
his legs, when Mr. Pettifer acquitted himself of this act of steward- 
ship, could have been thoroughly appreciated by no one but him- 
self; inasmuch as he must have slapped them black and blue, and 
they must have smarted tremendously. 

He couldn't stay for the wedding, having a few appointments 
to keep at the irreconcilable distance of about four thousand miles. 
So next morning all the village cheered him up to the level ground 
above, and there he shook hands with a complete Census of its 
population, and invited the whole, without exception, to come and 
stay several months with him at Salem, Massachusetts, United 
States. And there as he stood on the spot where he had seen that 
little golden picture of love and parting, and from which he could 
that morning contemplate another golden picture with a vista of 
golden years in it, little Kitty put her arms around his neck, and 
kissed him on both his bronzed cheeks, and laid her pretty face 
upon his storm-beaten breast, in sight of all, — ashamed to have 
called such a noble captain names. And there the captain waved 
his hat over his head three final times ; and there he was last seen, 
going away accompanied by Tom Pettifer, Ho, and carrying his 
hands in his pockets. And there, before that ground was softened 
with the fiiUen leaves of three more summers, a rosy little boy took 
his first unsteady run to a fair young mother's breast, and the name 
of that infant fisherman was Jorgan Raybrock. 



TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

IN THREE CHAPTERS. 

Chapter I. 

PICKING UP SOOT AND CINDERS. 

" And why Tom Tiddler's ground ? " asked the Traveller. 

"Because he scatters halfpence to Tramps and such-like," re- 
turned the Landlord, " and of course they pick 'em up. And this 
being done on his own land (which it is his own land, you observe, 
and were his family's before him), why it is but regarding the half- 
pence as gold and silver, and turning the ownership of the property 




TOM tiddler's ground. 



300 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

a bit round your finger, and there you have the name of the chil- 
dren's game complete. And it's appropriate too," said the Land- 
lord, with his favourite action of stooping a little, to look across 
the table out of window at vacancy, under the window-blind which 
was half drawn down. " Leastwise it has been so considered by 
many gentlemen which have partook of chops and tea in the pres- 
ent humble parlour." 

The Traveller was partaking of chops and tea in the present 
humble parlour, and the Landlord's shot was fired obHquely at 
him. 

" And you call him a Hermit ? " said the Traveller. 

"They call him such," returned the Landlord, evading personal 
responsibility ; " he is in general so considered." 

" What is a Hermit 1 " asked the Traveller. 

" What is it ? " repeated the Landlord, drawing his hand across 
his chin. 

" Yes, what is it ? " 

The Landlord stooped again, to get a more comprehensive view 
of vacancy under the window-blind, and — with an asphyxiated 
appearance on him as one unaccustomed to definition — made no 
answer. 

" I'll tell you what I suppose it to be," said the Traveller. " An 
abominably dirty thing." 

"Mr. Mopes is dirty, it cannot be denied," said the Landlord. 

" Intolerably conceited." 

"Mr. Mopes is vain of the life he leads, some do say," replied 
the Landlord, as another concession. 

"A slothful, unsavoury, nasty reversal of the laws of human 
nature," said the Traveller ; " and for the sake of God's working 
world and its wholesomeness, both moral and physical, I would put 
the thing on the treadmill (if I had my way) wherever I found it ; 
whether on a pillar, or in a hole ; whether on Tom Tiddler's ground, 
or the Pope of Rome's ground, or a Hindoo fakeer's ground, or any 
other ground." 

" I don't know about putting Mr. Mopes on the treadmill," said 
the Landlord, shaking his head very seriously. "There an't a 
doubt but what he has got landed property." 

" How far may it be to this said Tom Tiddler's ground ? " asked 
the Traveller. 

" Put it at five mile," returned the Landlord. 

" Well ! When I have done my breakfast," said the Traveller, 
" I'll go there. I came over here this morning, to find it out and 
see it." 

"Many does," observed the Landlord. 



J 



TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 301 

The conversation passed, in the Midsummer weather of no remote 
year of grace, down among the pleasant dales and trout-streams of 
a green English county. No matter what county. Enough that 
you may hunt there, shoot there, fish there, traverse long grass- 
grown Roman roads there, open ancient barrows there, see many a 
square mile of richly cultivated land there, and hold Arcadian talk 
with a bold peasantry, their country's pride, who will tell you (if 
you want to know) how pastoral housekeeping is done on nine shil- 
lings a week. 

Mr. Traveller sat at his breakfast in the little sanded parlour of 
the Peal of Bells village alehouse, with the dew and dust of an 
early walk upon his shoes — an early walk by road and meadow 
and coppice, that had sprinkled him bountifully with little blades 
of grass, and scraps of new hay, and with leaves both young and 
old, and with other such fragrant tokens of the freshness and wealth 
of summer. The window through which the Landlord had concen- 
trated his gaze upon vacancy was shaded, because the morning sun 
was hot and bright on the village street. The village street was 
like most other village streets : Avide for its height, silent for its 
size, and drowsy in the dullest degree. The quietest little dwell- 
ings with the largest of window-shutters (to shut up Nothing as 
carefully as if it were the Mint, or the Bank of England) had called 
in the Doctor's house so suddenly, that his brass door-plate and 
three stories stood among them as conspicuous and different as the 
Doctor himself in his broadcloth, among the smock-frocks of his 
patients. The village residences seemed to have gone to law with 
a similar absence of consideration, for a score of weak little lath- 
and-plaster cabins clung in confusion about the Attorney's red-brick 
house, which, with glaring door-steps and a most terrific scraper, 
seemed to serve all manner of ejectments upon them. They were 
as various as labourers — high -shouldered, wry-necked, one-eyed, 
goggle-eyed, squinting, bow-legged, knock-knee'd, rheumatic, crazy. 
Some of the small tradesmen's houses, such as the crockery-shop 
and the harness-maker's, had a Cyclops window in the middle of the 
gable, within an inch or two of its apex, suggesting that some for- 
lorn rural Prentice must wriggle himself into that apartment hori- 
zontally, when he retired to rest, after the manner of the worm. 
So bountiful in its abundance was the surrounding country, and so 
lean and scant the village, that one might have thought the village 
had sown and planted everything it once possessed, to convert the 
same into crops. This would account for the bareness of the little 
shops, the bareness of the few boards and trestles designed for 
market purposes in a corner of the street, the bareness of the obso- 
lete Inn and Inn Yard, with the ominous inscription "Excise Oflice" 



302 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

not yet faded out from the gateway, as indicating the very last 
thing that poverty could get rid of. This would also account for 
the determined abandonment of the village by one stray dog, fast 
lessening in the perspective where the white posts and the pond 
were, and would explain his conduct on the hypothesis that he was 
going (through the act of suicide) to convert himself into manure, 
and become a part proprietor in turnips or mangold-wurzel. 

Mr. Traveller having finished his breakfast and paid his moderate 
score, walked out to the threshold of the Peal of Bells, and, thence 
directed by the pointing finger of his host, betook himself towards 
the ruined hermitage of Mr. Mopes the Hermit. 

For, Mr. Mopes, by suff"ering everything about him to go to ruin, 
and by dressing himself in a blanket and skewer, and by steeping 
himself in soot and grease and other nastiness, had acquired great 
renown in all that country-side — far greater renown than he could 
ever have won for himself if his career had been that of any ordi- 
nary Christian, or decent Hottentot. He had even blanketed and 
skewered and sooted and greased himself, into the London papers. 
And it was curious to find, as Mr. Traveller found by stopping for 
a new direction at this farm-house or at that cottage as he went 
along, with how much accuracy the morbid Mopes had counted on 
the weakness of his neighbours to embellish him. A mist of home- 
brewed marvel and romance surrounded Mopes, in which (as in all 
fogs) the real proportions of the real object were extravagantly 
heightened. He had murdered his beautiful beloved in a fit of jeal- 
ousy and was doing penance ; he had made a vow under the influence 
of grief; he had made a vow under the influence of a fatal accident ; 
he had made a vow under the influence of religion ; he had made a 
vow under the influence of drink ; he had made a vow under the in- 
fluence of disappointment ; he had never made any vow, but " had 
got led into it " by the possession of a mighty and most awful secret ; 
he was enormously rich, he was stupendously charitable, he was pro- 
foundly learned, he saw spectres, he knew and could do all kinds of 
wonders. Some said he went out every night, and was met by terri- 
fied wayfarers stalking along dark roads, others said he never went 
out, some knew his penance to be nearly expired, others had posi- 
tive information that his seclusion was not a penance at all, and 
would never expire but with himself. Even, as to the easy facts of 
how old he was, or how long he had held verminous occupation of 
his blanket and skewer, no consistent information was to be got, 
from those who must know if they would. He was represented as 
being all the ages between five-and-twenty and sixty, and as having 
been a Hermit seven years, twelve, twenty, thirty, — though twenty, 
on the whole, appeared the favourite term. 



TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 303 

" Well, well ! " said Mr. Traveller. " At any rate, let us see 
what a real live Hermit looks like." 

So, Mr. Traveller went on, and on, and on, until he came to Tom 
Tiddler's ground. 

It was a nook in a rustic by-road, which the genius of Mopes had 
laid waste as completely as if he had been born an Emperor and 
a Conqueror. Its centre object was a dwelling-house, sufficiently 
substantial, all the window-glass of which had been long ago abol- 
ished by the surprising genius of Mopes, and all the windows of 
which were barred across with rough-split logs of trees nailed over 
them on the outside. A rickyard, hip-high in vegetable rankness 
and ruin, contained out-buildings, from which the thatch had lightly 
fluttered away, on all the winds of all the seasons of the year, and 
from which the planks and beams had heavily dropped and rotted. 
The frosts and damps of winter, and the heats of summer, had 
warped what wreck remained, so that not a post or a board retained 
the position it was meant to hold, but everything was twisted from 
its purpose, like its owner, and degraded and debased. In this 
homestead of the sluggard, behind the ruined hedge, and sinking 
away among the ruined grass and the nettles, were the last perish- 
ing fragments of certain ricks : which had gradually mildewed and 
collapsed, until they looked like mounds of rotten honeycomb, or 
dirty sponge. Tom Tiddler's ground could even show its ruined 
water; for, there was a slimy pond into which a tree or two had 
fallen — one soppy trunk and branches lay across it then — which 
in its accumulation of stagnant weed, and in its black decomposi- 
tion, and in all its foulness and filth, was almost comforting, re- 
garded as the only water that could have reflected the shameful 
place without seeming polluted by that low office. 

Mr. Traveller looked all around him on Tom Tiddler's ground, 
and his glance at last encountered a dusky Tinker lying among the 
weeds and rank grass, in the shade of the dwelling-house. A rough 
walking-staff lay on the ground by his side, and his head rested on 
a small wallet. He met Mr. Traveller's eye without lifting up his 
head, merely depressing his chin a little (for he was lying on his 
back) to get a better view of him. 

" Good day ! " said Mr. Traveller. 

"Same to you, if you like it," returned the Tinker. 

" Don't ycm like it? It's a very fine day." 

" I an't partickler in weather," returned the Tinker, with a yawn. 

Mr. Traveller had walked up to where he lay, and was looking 
down at him. " This is a curious place," said Mr. Traveller. 

" Ay, I suppose so ! " returned the Tinker. " Tom Tiddler's 
ground, they call this." 



304 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

" Arc you well acquainted with it?" 

" Never saw it afore to-day," said the Tinker, with another yawn, 
" and don't care if I never see it again. There was a man here just 
now, told me what it was called. If you want to see Tom himself, 
you must go in at that gate." He faintly indicated with his chin a 
little mean ruin of a wooden gate at the side of the house. 

" Have you seen Tom ? " 

" No, and I an't partickler to see him. I can see a dirty man 
anywhere." 

"He does not live in the house, then?" said Mr. Traveller, cast- 
ing his eyes upon the house anew. 

"The man said," returned the Tinker, rather irritably, — "him 
as was here just now, — ' this what you're a lying on, mate, is Tom 
Tiddler's ground. And if you want to see Tom,' he says, * you must 
go in at that gate.' The man come out at that gate himself, and 
he ought to know." 

" Certainly," said Mr. Traveller. 

" Though, perhaps," exclaimed the Tinker, so stmck by the 
brightness of his own idea, that it had the electric effect upon him 
of causing him to lift up his head an inch or so, " perhaps he was a 
liar ! He told some rum 'uns — him as was here just now, did 
about this place of Tom's. He says — him as was here just now 
— ' When Tom shut up the house, mate, to go to rack, the beds 
was left, all made, like as if somebody was a going to sleep in every 
bed. And if you was to walk through the bedrooms now, you'd 
see the ragged mouldy bedclothes a heaving and a heaving like seas. 
And a heaving and a heaving with what ? ' he says. ' Why, with 
the rats under 'em.' " 

" I wish I had seen that man," Mr. Traveller remarked. 

"You'd have been welcome to see him instead of me seeing him," 
growled the Tinker; "for he was a long-winded one." 

Not without a sense of injury in the remembrance, the Tinker 
gloomily closed his eyes. Mr. Traveller, deeming the Tinker a short- 
winded one, from whom no further breath of information was to be 
derived, betook himself to the gate. 

Sw^mg upon its rusty hinges, it admitted him into a yard in 
which there was nothing to be seen but an outhouse attached to the 
ruined building, with a barred window in it. As there were traces 
of many recent footsteps under this window, and as it was a low 
window, and unglazed, Mr. Traveller made bold to peep within the 
bars. And there to be sure he had a real live Hermit before him, 
and could judge how the real dead Hermits used to look. 

He was lying on a bank of soot and cinders, on the floor, in front 
of a rusty fire-place. There was nothing else in the dark little 



TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 305 

kitchen, or scullery, or whatever his den had been originally used as, 
but a table with a litter of old bottles on it. A rat made a clatter 
among these bottles, jumped down, and ran over the real live Hermit 
on his way to his hole, or the man in his hole would not have been 
so easily discernible. Tickled in the face by the rat's tail, the owner 
of Tom Tiddler's ground opened his eyes, saw Mr. Traveller, started 
up, and sprang to the window. 

" Humph ! " thought Mr. Traveller, retiring a pace or two from 
the bars. " A compound of Newgate, Bedlam, a Debtors' Prison 
in the worst time, a chimney-sweep, a mudlark, and the Noble 
Savage ! A nice old family, the Hermit family. Hah ! " 

Mr. Traveller thought this, as he silently confronted the sooty 
object in the blanket and skewer (in sober truth it wore nothing 
else), with the matted hair and the staring eyes. Further, Mr. 
Traveller thought, as the eye surveyed him with a very obvious 
curiosity in ascertaining the effect they produced, " Vanity, vanity, 
vanity ! Verily, all is vanity ! " 

" What is your name, sir, and where do you come from 1 " asked 
Mr. Mopes the Hermit — with an air of authority, but in the ordi- 
nary human speech of one who has been to school. 

Mr. Traveller answered the inquiries. 

" Did you come here, sir, to see me ? " 

" I did. I heard of you, and I came to see you. — I know you 
like to be seen." Mr. Traveller coolly threw the last words in, as 
a matter of course, to forestall an affectation of resentment or objec- 
tion that he saw rising beneath the grease and grime of the face. 
They had their effect. 

" So," said the Hermit, after a momentary silence, unclasping 
the bars by which he had previously held, and seating himself be- 
hind them on the ledge of the window, with his bare legs and feet 
crouched up, '' you know I like to be seen 1 " 

Mr. Traveller looked about him for something to sit on, and, ob- 
serving a billet of wood in a corner, brought it near the window. 
Deliberately seating himself upon it, he answered, "Just so." 

Each looked at the other, and each appeared to take some pains 
to get the measure of the other. 

" Then you have come to ask me why I lead this life," said the 
Hermit, frowning in a stormy manner. " I never tell that to any 
human being. I will not be asked that." 

" Certainly you will not be asked that by me," said Mr. Traveller, 
"for I have not the slightest desire to know." 

"You are an uncouth man," said Mr. Mopes the Hermit. 

"You are another," said Mr. Traveller. 

The Hermit, who was plainly in the habit of overawing his vis- 



306 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

itors with the novelty of his filth and his blanket and skewer, glared 
at his present visitor in some discomfiture and surprise : as if he had 
taken aim at him with a sure gun, and his piece had missed fire. 

" Why do you come here at all ? " he asked, after a pause. 

"Upon my life," said Mr. Traveller, " I was made to ask myself 
that very question only a few minutes ago — by a Tinker too." 

As he glanced towards the gate in saying it, the Hermit glanced 
in that direction likewise. 

"Yes. He is lying on his back in the sunlight outside," said Mr. 
Traveller, as if he had been asked concerning the man, " and he 
won't come in ; for he says — and really very reasonably — ' What 
should I come in for? I can see a dirty man anywhere.' " 

"You are an insolent person. Go away from my premises. 
Go ! " said the Hermit, in an imperious and angry tone. 

" Come, come ! " returned Mr. Traveller, quite undisturbed. 
"This is a little too much. You are not going to call yourself 
clean ? Look at your legs. And as to these being your premises : 
— they are in far too disgraceful a condition to claim any privilege 
of ownership, or anything else." 

The Hermit bounced down from his window-ledge, and cast him- 
self on his bed of soot and cinders. 

" I am not going," said Mr. Traveller, glancing in after him ; 
"you won't get rid of me in that way. You had better come and 
talk." 

" I won't talk," said the Hermit, flouncing round to get his back 
towards the window. 

"Then I will," said Mr. Traveller. "Why should you take it 
ill that I have no curiosity to know why you live this highly absurd 
and highly indecent life 1 When I contemplate a man in a state 
of disease, surely there is no moral obligation on me to be anxious 
to know how he took it." 

After a short silence, the Hermit bounced up again, and came 
back to the barred window. 

" What ? You are not gone ? " he said, afiecting to have sup- 
posed that he was. 

" Nor going," Mr. Traveller replied : "I design to pass this 
summer day here." 

" How dare you come, sir, upon my premises " the Hermit 

was returning, when his visitor interrupted him. 

" Really, you know, you must 7iot talk about your premises. I 
cannot allow such a place as this to be dignified with the name of 
premises." 

"How dare you," said the Hermit, shaking his bars, "come in 
at my gate, to taunt me with being in a diseased state 1 " 



TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 307 

" Why, Lord bless my soul," returned the other, very composedly, 
"you have not the face to say that you are in a wholesome state? 
Do allow me again to call your attention to your legs. Scrape 
yourself any where — with anything — and then tell me you are in 
a wholesome state. The fact is, Mr. Mopes, that you are not only 
a Nuisance " 

" A Nuisance ? " repeated the Hermit, fiercely. 

" What is a place in this obscene state of dilapidation but a 
Nuisance 1 What is a man in your obscene state of dilapidation 
but a Nuisance ? Then, as you very well know, you cannot do with- 
out an audience, and your audience is a Nuisance. You attract all 
the disreputable vagabonds and prowlers within ten miles around, 
by exhibiting yourself to them in that objectionable blanket, and 
by throwing copper money among them, and giving them drink out 
of those very dirty jars and bottles that I see in there (their stom- 
achs need be strong !) ; and in short," said Mr. Traveller, summing 
up in a quietly and comfortably settled manner, "you are a Nui- 
sance, and this kennel is a Nuisance, and the audience that you can- 
not possibly dispense with is a Nuisance, and the Nuisance is not 
merely a local Nuisance, because it is a general Nuisance to know 
that there can be such a Nuisance left in civilisation so very long 
after its time." 

" Will you go away ? I have a gun in here," said the Hermit. 

"PoohV' 

''Ihave/" 

" Now, I put it to you. Did I say you had not ? And as to 
going away, didn't I say I am not going away 1 You have made 
me forget where I was. I now remember that I was remarking on 
your conduct being a Nuisance. Moreover, it is in the last and 
lowest degree inconsequent foolishness and weakness." 

" Weakness ? " echoed the Hermit. 

"Weakness," said Mr. Traveller, with his former comfortably 
settled final air. 

" I weak, you fool ? " cried the Hermit, " I, who have held to my 
purpose, and my diet, and my only bed there, all these years 1 " 

"The more the years, the weaker you," returned Mr. Traveller. 
" Though the years are not so many as folks say, and as you will- 
ingly take credit for. The crust upon your face is thick and dark, 
Mr. Mopes, but I can see enough of you through it, to see that 
you are still a young man." 

"Inconsequent foolishness is lunacy, I suppose?" said the Hermit. 

"I suppose it is very like it," answered Mr. Traveller. 

"Do I converse like a lunatic?" 

" One of us two must have a strong presumption against him of 



308 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

being one, whether or no. Either the clean and decorously clad 
man, or the dirty and indecorously clad man. I don't say which." 

"Why, you self-sufficient bear," said the Hermit, "not a day 
passes but I am justified in my purpose by the conversations I 
hold here ; not a day passes but I am shown, by everything I hear 
and see here, how right and strong I am in holding my purpose." 

Mr. Traveller, lounging easily on his billet of wood, took out a 
pocket pipe and began to fill it. " Now, that a man," he said, ap- 
pealing to the summer sky as he did so, "that a man — even be- 
hind bars, in a blanket and skewer — should tell me that he can 
see, from day to day, any orders or conditions of men, women, or 
children, who can by any possibility teach him that it is anything 
but the miserablest drivelHng for a human creature to quarrel with 
his social nature — not to go so far as to say, to renounce his com- 
mon human decency, for that is an extreme case ; or who can teach 
him that he can in any wise separate himself from his kind and 
the habits of his kind, without becoming a deteriorated spectacle 
calculated to give the Devil (and perhaps the monkeys) pleasure, 
— is something wonderful! I repeat," said Mr. Traveller, begin- 
ning to smoke, " the unreasoning hardihood of it is something won- 
derful — even in a man with the dirt upon him an inch or two 
thick — behind bars — in a blanket and skewer ! " 

The Hermit looked at him irresolutely, and retired to his soot 
and cinders and lay down, and got up again and came to the bars, 
and again looked at him irresolutely, and finally said with sharp- 
ness : " I don't like tobacco." 

"I don't like dirt," rejoined Mr. Traveller; "tobacco is an ex- 
cellent disinfectant. We shall both be the better for my pipe. 
It is my intention to sit here through this summer day, until that 
blessed summer sun sinks low in the west, and to show you what 
a poor creature you are, through the lips of every chance wayfarer 
who may come in at your gate." 

" What do you mean 1 " inquired the Hermit, with a furious air. 

" I mean that yonder is your gate, and there are you, and here 
am I ; I mean that I know it to be a moral impossibility that any 
person can stray in at that gate from any point of the compass, 
with any sort of experience, gained at first hand, or derived from 
another, that can confute me and justify you." 

"You are an arrogant and boastful hero," said the Hermit. 
"You think yourself profoundly wise." 

" Bah ! " returned Mr. Traveller, quietly smoking. " There is 
little wisdom in knowing that every man must be up and doing, 
and that all mankind are made dependent on one another." 

" You have companions outside," said the Hermit. " I am not 



1 



TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 309 

to be imposed upon by your assumed confidence in the people who 
may enter." 

"A depraved distrust," returned the visitor, compassionately 
raising his eyebrows, "of course belongs to your state. I can't 
help that." 

" Do you mean to tell me you have no confederates ? " 
"I mean to tell you nothing but what I have told you. What 
I have told you is, that it is a moral impossibility that any son or 
daughter of Adam can stand on this ground that I put my foot on, 
or on any ground that mortal treads, and gainsay the healthy ten- 
ure on which we hold our existence." 

"Which is," sneered the Hermit, "according to you — " 
"Which is," returned the other, "according to Eternal Provi- 
dence, that we must arise and wash our faces and do our gregari- 
ous work and act and react on one another, leaving only the idiot 
and the palsied to sit blinking in the corner. Come ! " apostro- 
phising the gate. " Open Sesame ! Show his eyes and grieve his 
heart ! I don't care who comes, for I know what must come of it ! " 
With that, he faced round a little on his billet of wood towards 
the gate ; and Mr. Mopes, the Hermit, after two or three ridiculous 
bounces of indecision at his bed and back again, submitted to what 
he could not help himself against, and coiled himself on his window- 
ledge, holding to his bars and looking out rather anxiously. 



Chapter II. 

PICKING UP MISS KIMMEENS. 

The day was by this time waning, when the gate again opened, 
and, with the brilliant golden light that streamed from the declin- 
ing sun and touched the very bars of the sooty creature's den, 
there passed in a little child ; a little girl with beautiful bright 
hair. She wore a plain straw hat, had a door-key in her hand, and 
tripped towards Mr. Traveller as if she were pleased to see him 
and were going to repose some childish confidence in him, when 
she caught sight of the figure behind the bars, and started back 
in terror. 

" Don't be alarmed, darling ! " said Mr. Traveller, taking her by 
the hand. 

" Oh, but I don't like it ! " urged the shrinking child ; " it's 
dreadful." 

"Well ! I don't like it either," said Mr. Traveller. 

" Who has put it there ? " asked the little girl. " Does it bite 1 " 



310 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

"No, — only barks. But can't you make up your mind to see 
it, my dear ? " For she was covering her eyes. 

" no no no ! " returned the child. " I cannot bear to look at it ! " 
Mr. Traveller turned his head towards his friend in there, as 
much as to ask him how he liked that instance of his success, and 
then took the child out at the still open gate, and stood talking to 
her for some half an hour in the mellow sunlight. At length he re- 
turned, encouraging her as she held his arm with both her hands ; 
and laying his protecting hand upon her head and smoothing her 
pretty hair, he addressed his friend behind the bars as follows : 

Miss Pupford's establishment for six young ladies of tender 
years is an establishment of a compact nature, an establishment 
in miniature, quite a pocket establishment. Miss Pupford, Miss 
Pupford's assistant with the Parisian accent. Miss Pupford's cook, 
and Miss Pupford's housemaid, complete what Miss Pupford calls 
the educational and domestic staff of her Lilliputian College. 

Miss Pupford is one of the most amiable of her sex ; it neces- 
sarily follows that she possesses a sweet temper, and would own to 
the possession of a great deal of sentiment if she considered it quite 
reconcilable with her duty to parents. Deeming it not in the bond, 
Miss Pupford keeps it as far out of sight as she can — which (God 
bless her !) is not very far. 

Miss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian accent, may be re- 
garded as in some sort an inspired lady, for she never conversed 
with a Parisian, and was never out of England — except once in 
the pleasure-boat Lively, in the foreign waters that ebb and flow 
two miles off Margate at high water. Even under those geographi- 
cally favourable circumstances for the acquisition of the French 
language in its utmost politeness and purity, Miss Pupford's assist- 
ant did not fully profit by the opportunity ; for the pleasure-boat. 
Lively, so strongly asserted its title to its name on that occasion, 
that she was reduced to the condition of lying in the bottom of the 
boat pickling in brine — as if she were being salted down for the 
use of the Navy — undergoing at the same time great mental alarm, 
corporeal distress, and clear-starching derangement. 

When Miss Pupford and her assistant first foregathered, is not 
known to men, or pupils. But, it was long ago. A belief would 
have established itself among pupils that the two once went to 
school together, were it not for the difficulty and audacity of imagin- 
ing Miss Pupford born without mittens, and without a front, and 
without a bit of gold wire among her front teeth, and without 
little dabs of powder on her neat little face and nose. Indeed, 
whenever Miss Pupford gives a little lecture on the mythology of 



TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 311 

the misguided heathens (always carefully excluding Cupid from 
recognition), and tells how Minerva sprang, perfectly equipped, 
from the brain of Jupiter, she is half supposed to hint, " So I 
myself came into the world, completely up in Pinnock, Mangnall, 
Tables, and the use of the Globes." 

Howbeit, Miss Pupford and Miss Pupford's assistant are old 
old friends. And it is thought by pupils that, after pupils are 
gone to bed, they even call one another by their Christian names in 
the quiet little parlour. For, once upon a time on a thunderous 
afternoon, when Miss Pupford fainted away without notice, Miss 
Pupford's assistant (never heard, before or since, to address her 
otherwise than as Miss Pupford) ran to her, crying out "My 
dearest Euphemia ! " And Euphemia is Miss Pupford's Christian 
name on the sampler (date picked out) hanging up in the College- 
hall, where the two peacocks, terrified to death by some German 
text that is waddling down hill after them out of a cottage, are 
scuttling away to hide their profiles in two immense bean-stalks 
growing out of flower-pots. 

Also, there is a notion latent among pupils, that Miss Pupford 
was once in love, and that the beloved object still moves upon this 
ball. Also, that he is a public character, and a personage of vast 
consequence. Also, that Miss Pupford's assistant knows all about 
it. For, sometimes of an afternoon when Miss Pupford has been 
reading the paper through her little gold eye-glass (it is necessary 
to read it on the spot, as the boy calls for it, with ill-conditioned 
punctuality, in an hour), she has become agitated, and has said to 
her assistant, " G ! " Then Miss Pupford's assistant has gone to 
Miss Pupford, and Miss Pupford has pointed out, with her eye- 
glass, G in the paper, and then Miss Pupford's assistant has read 
about G, and has shown sympathy. So stimulated has the pupil- 
mind been in its time to curiosity on the subject of G, that once, 
under temporary circumstances favourable to the bold sally, one 
fearless pupil did actually obtain possession of the paper, and range 
all over it in search of G, who had been discovered therein by Miss 
Pupford not ten minutes before. But no G could be identified, 
except one capital offender who had been executed in a state of great 
hardihood, and it was not to be supposed that Miss Pupitrd could 
ever have loved him. Besides, he couldn't be always being exe- 
cuted. Besides, he got into the paper again, alive, within a 
month. 

On the whole, it is suspected by the pupil-mind that G is a short 
chubby old gentleman, with little black sealing-wax boots up to 
his knees, whom a sharply observant pupil. Miss Linx, when she 
once went to Tunbridge Wells with Miss Pupford for the holidays, 



312 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

reported on her return (privately and confidentially) to have seen 
come capering up to Miss Pupford on the Promenade, and to have 
detected in the act of squeezing Miss Pupford's hand, and to have 
heard pronounce the words, "Cruel Euphemia, ever thine ! " — or 
something like that. Miss Linx hazarded a guess that he might 
be House of Commons, or Money Market, or Court Circular, or 
Fashionable Movements ; which would account for his getting into 
the paper so often. But, it was fatally objected by the pupil-mind, 
that none of those notabilities could possibly be spelt with a G. 

There are other occasions, closely watched and perfectly com- 
prehended by the pupil-mind, when Miss Pupford imparts with 
mystery to her assistant that there is special excitement in the 
morning paper. These occasions are, when Miss Pupford finds 
an old pupil coming out under the head of Births, or Marriages. 
Aff*ectionate tears are invariably seen in Miss Pupford's meek little 
eyes when this is the case ; and the pupil-mind, perceiving that its 
order has distinguished itself — though the fact is never mentioned 
by Miss Pupford — becomes elevated, and feels that it likewise is 
reserved for greatness. 

Miss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian accent has a little 
more bone than Miss Pupford, but is of the same trim orderly 
diminutive cast, and, from long contemplation, admiration, and 
imitation of Miss Pupford, has grown like her. Being entirely 
devoted to Miss Pupford, and having a pretty talent for pencil- 
drawing, she once made a portrait of that lady : which was so 
instantly identified and hailed by the pupils, that it was done on 
stone at five shillings. Surely the softest and milkiest stone that 
ever was quarried, received that likeness of Miss Pupford ! The 
lines of her placid little nose are so undecided in it that strangers 
to the work of art are observed to be exceedingly perplexed as to 
where the nose goes to, and involuntarily feel their own noses in a 
disconcerted manner. Miss Pupford being represented in a state 
of dejection at an open window, ruminating over a bowl of gold-fish, 
the pupil-mind has settled that the bowl was presented by G, and 
that he wreathed the bowl with flowers of soul, and that Miss 
Pupford is depicted as waiting for him on a memorable occasion 
when hervvas behind his time. 

The approach of the last Midsummer holidays had a particular 
interest for the pupil-mind, by reason of its knowing that Miss 
Pupford was bidden, on the second day of those holidays, to the 
nuptials of a former pupil. As it was impossible to conceal the 
fact — so extensive were the dress-making preparations — Miss Pup- 
ford openly announced it. But, she held it due to parents to make 
the announcement with an air of gentle melancholy, as if marriage 



TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 313 

were (as indeed it exceptionally has been) rather a calamity. With 
an air of softened resignation and pity, therefore, Miss Pupford 
went on with her preparations : and meanwhile no pupil ever went 
up-stairs, or came down, without peeping in at the door of Miss 
Pupford's bedroom (when Miss Pupford wasn't there), and bring- 
ing back some surprising intelligence concerning the bonnet. 

The extensive preparations being completed on the day before 
the holidays, an unanimous entreaty was preferred to Miss Pupford 
by the pupil-mind — finding expression through Miss Pupford's 
assistant — that she would deign to appear in all her splendour. 
Miss Pupford consenting, presented a lovely 'spectacle. And al- 
though the oldest pupil was barely thirteen, every one of the six 
became in two minutes perfect in the shape, cut, colour, price, 
and quality, of every article Miss Pupford wore. 

Thus delightfully ushered in, the holidays began. Five of the 
six pupils kissed little Kitty Kimmeens twenty times over (round 
total, one hundred times, for she was very popular), and so went 
home. Miss Kitty Kimmeens remained behind, for her relations 
and friends were all in India, far away. A self-helpful, steady 
little child is Miss Kitty Kimmeens : a dimpled child too, and a 
loving. 

So, the great marriage-day came, and Miss Pupford, quite as 
much fluttered as any bride could be (G ! thought Miss Kitty 
Kimmeens), went away, splendid to behold, in the carriage that 
was sent for her. But not Miss Pupford only went away; for 
Miss Pupford's assistant went away with her, on a dutiful visit 
to an aged uncle — though surely the venerable gentleman couldn't 
live in the gallery of the church where the marriage was to be, 
thought Miss Kitty Kimmeens — and yet Miss Pupford's assistant 
had let out that she was going there. Where the cook was going, 
didn't appear, but . he generally conveyed to Miss Kimmeens that 
she was bound, rather against her will, on a pilgrimage to perform 
some pious office that rendered new ribbons necessary to her best 
bonnet, and also sandals to her shoes. 

" So you see," said the housemaid, when they were all gone, 
" there's nobody left in the house but you and me. Miss Kim- 
meens." 

" Nobody else," said Miss Kitty Kimmeens, shaking her curls a 
little sadly. "Nobody!" 

"And you wouldn't like your Bella to go too ; would you, Miss 
Kimmeens?" said the housemaid. (She being Bella.) 

" N — no," answered little Miss Kimmeens. 

"Your poor Bella is forced to stay with you, whether she likes 
it or not ; an't she, Miss Kimmeens ? " 



314 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

" DonH you like it ? " inquired Kitty. 

" Why, you're such a darling, Miss, that it would be unkind of 
your Bella to make objections. Yet my brother-in-law has been 
took unexpected bad by this morning's post. And your poor 
Bella is much attached to him, letting alone her favourite sister, 
Miss Kimmeens." 

" Is he very ill ? " asked little Kitty. 

" Your poor Bella has her fears so, Miss Kimmeens," returned 
the housemaid, with her apron at her eyes. " It was but his in- 
side, it is true, but it might mount, and the doctor said that if it 
mounted he wouldn't answer." Here the housemaid was so over- 
come that Kitty administered the only comfort she had ready : 
which was a kiss. 

"If it hadn't been for disappointing Cook, dear Miss Kimmeens," 
said the housemaid, " your Bella would have asked her to stay with 
you. For Cook is sweet company, Miss Kimmeens, much more so 
than your own poor Bella." 

" But you are very nice, Bella." 

"Your Bella could wish to be so. Miss Kimmeens," returned 
the housemaid, "but she knows full well that it do not lay in 
her power this day." 

With which despondent conviction, the housemaid drew a heavy 
sigh, and shook her head, and dropped it on one side. 

" If it had been anyways right to disappoint Cook," she pursued, 
in a contemplative and abstracted manner, "it might have been 
so easy done ! I could have got to my brother-in-law's, and had the 
best part of the day there, and got back, long before our ladies 
come home at night, and neither the one nor the other of them 
need never have known it. Not that Miss Pupford would at all 
object, but that it might put her out, being tender-hearted. 
Hows'ever, your own poor Bella, Miss Kimmeens," said the house- 
maid, rousing herself, " is forced to stay with you, and you're a 
precious love, if not a liberty." 

" Bella," said little Kitty, after a short silence. 

"Call your own poor Bella, your Bella, dear," the housemaid 
besought her. 

"My Bella, then." 

" Bless your considerate heart ! " said the housemaid. 

" If you would not mind leaving me, I should not mind being 
left. I am not afraid to stay in the house alone. And you need 
not be uneasy on my account, for I would be very careful to do 
no harm." 

" ! As to harm, you more than sweetest, if not a liberty," 
exclaimed the housemaid, in a rapture, " your Bella could trust you 



TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 315 

anywhere, being so steady, and so answerable. The oldest head 
in this house (me and Cook says), but for its bright hair, is 
Miss Kimmeens. But no, I will not leave you; for you would 
think your Bella unkind." 

"But if you are my Bella, you must go," returned the child. 

" Must I ? " said the housemaid, rising, on the whole with alac- 
rity. " What must be, must be. Miss Kimmeens. Your own poor 
Bella acts according, though unwilling. But go or stay, your own 
poor Bella loves you. Miss Kimmeens." 

It was certainly go, and not stay, for within five minutes? Miss 
Kimmeens's own poor Bella — so much improved' in point of spirits 
as to have grown almost sanguine on the subject of her brother-in- 
law — went her way, in apparel that seemed to have been expressly 
prepared for some festive occasion. Such are the changes of this 
fleeting world, and so short-sighted are we poor mortals ! 

When the house door closed with a bang and a shake, it seemed 
to Miss Kimmeens to be a very heavy house door, shutting her up 
in a wilderness of a house. But, Miss Kimmeens being, as before 
stated, of a self-reliant and methodical character, presently began 
to parcel out the long summer-day before her. 

And first she thought she would go all over the house, to make 
quite sure that nobody with a great-coat on and a carving-knife in 
it, had got under one of the beds or into one of the cupboards. 
Not that she had ever before been troubled by the image of any- 
body armed with a great-coat and a carving-knife, but that it 
seemed to have been shaken into existence by the shake and the 
bang of the great street door, reverberating through the solitary 
house. So, little Miss Kimmeens looked under the five empty 
beds of the five departed pupils, and looked under her own bed, 
and looked under Miss Pupford's bed, and looked under Miss 
Pupford's assistant's bed. And when she had done this, and was 
making the tour of the cupboards, the disagreeable thought came 
into her young head. What a very alarming thing it would be to 
find somebody with a mask on, like Guy Fawkes, hiding bolt 
upright in a corner and pretending not to be alive ! However, 
Miss Kimmeens having finished her inspection without making any 
such uncomfortable discovery, sat down in her tidy little manner 
to needlework, and began stitching away at a great rate. 

The silence all about her soon grew very oppressive, and the more 
so because of the odd inconsistency that the more silent it was, 
the more noises there were. The noise of her own needle and 
thread as she stitched, was infinitely louder in her ears than the 
stitching of all the six pupils, and of Miss Pupford, and of Miss 
Pupford's assistant, all stitching away at once on a highly emula- 



316 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

tive afternoon. Then, the schoolroom clock conducted itself in a 
way in which it had never conducted itself before — fell lame, 
somehow, and yet persisted in running on as hard and as loud as 
it could : the consequence of which behaviour was, that it stag- 
gered among the minutes in a state of the greatest confusion, and 
knocked them about in all directions without appearing to get on 
with its regular work. Perhaps this alarmed the stairs : but be 
that as it might, they began to creak in a most unusual manner, 
and then the furniture began to crack, and then poor little Miss 
Kimmeens, not liking the furtive aspect of things in general, began 
to sing as she stitched. But, it was not her own voice that she 
heard — it was somebody else making believe to be Kitty, and 
singing excessively flat, without any heart — so as that would 
never mend matters, she left ofi" again. 

By-and-bye, the stitching became so palpable a failure that Miss 
Kitty Kimmeens folded her work neatly, and put it away in its 
box, and gave it up. Then the question arose about reading. But 
no ; the book that was so delightful when there was somebody she 
loved for her eyes to fall on when they rose from the page, had not 
more heart in it than her own singing now. The book went to its 
shelf as the needlework had gone to its box, and, since something 
must be done — thought the child, " I'll go put my room to rights." 

She shared her room with her dearest little friend among the 
other five pupils, and why then should she now conceive a lurking 
dread of the little friend's bedstead ? But she did. There was a 
stealthy air about its innocent white curtains, and there were even 
dark hints of a dead girl lying under the coverlet. The great want 
of human company, the great need of a human face, began now to 
express itself in the facility with which the furniture put on strange 
exaggerated resemblances to human looks. A chair with a menac- 
ing frown was horribly out of temper in a corner ; a most vicious 
chest of drawers snarled at her from between the windows. It 
was no relief to escape from those monsters to the looking-glass, 
for the reflection said, "What 1 Is that you all alone there 1 How 
you stare ! " And the background was all a great void stare as 
well. 

The day dragged on, dragging Kitty with it very slowly by the 
hair of her head, until it was time to eat. There were good pro- 
visions in the pantry, but their right flavour and relish had evapo- 
rated with the five pupils, and Miss Pupford, and Miss Pupford's 
assistant, and the cook and housemaid. Where was the use of 
laying the cloth symmetrically for one small guest, who had gone 
on ever since the morning growing smaller and smaller, while the 
empty house had gone on swelling larger and larger? The very 



TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 317 

Grace came out wrong, for who were "we" who were going to 
receive and be thankful ? So, Miss Kimmeens was not thankful, 
and found herself taking her dinner in very slovenly style — gob- 
bling it up, in short, rather after the manner of the lower animals, 
not to particularise the pigs. 

But, this was by no means the worst of the change wrought out 
in the naturally loving and cheery little creature as the solitary day 
wore on. She began to brood and be suspicious. She discovered 
that she was full of wrongs and injuries. All the people she knew, 
got tainted by her lonely thoughts and turned bad. 

It was all very well for Papa, a widower in India, to send her 
home to be educated, and to pay a handsome round sum every 
year for her to Miss Pupford, and to write charming letters to his 
darling little daughter ; but what did he care for her being left 
by herself, when he was (as no doubt he always was) enjoying 
himself in company from morning till night? Perhaps he only 
sent her here, after all, to get her out of the way. It looked like 
it — looked like it to-day, that is, for she had never dreamed of such 
a thing before. 

And this old pupil who was being married. It was insupport- 
ably conceited and selfish in the old pupil to be married. She was 
very vain, and very glad to show off; but it was highly probable 
that she wasn't pretty; and even if she were pretty (which Miss 
Kimmeens now totally denied), she had no business to be married ; 
and, even if marriage were conceded, she had no business to ask 
Miss Pupford to her wedding. As to Miss Pupford, she was too 
old to go to any wedding. She ought to know that. She had 
much better attend to her business. She had thought she looked 
nice in the morning, but she didn't look nice. She was a stupid 
old thing. G was another stupid old thing. Miss Pupford's 
assistant was another. They were all stupid old things together. 

More than that : it began to be obvious that this was a plot. 
They had said to one another, " Never mind Kitty ; you get off, 
and I'll get off; and we'll leave Kitty to look after herself. Who 
cares for her ? " To be sure they were right in that question ; for 
who did care for her, a poor little lonely thing against whom they 
all planned and plotted? Nobody, nobody! Here Kitty sobbed. 

At all other times she was the pet of the whole house, and loved 
her five companions in return with a child's tenderest and most 
ingenuous attachment; but now, the five companions put on ugly 
colours, and appeared for the first time under a sullen cloud. There 
they were, all at their homes that day, being made much of, being 
taken out, being spoilt and made disagreeable, and caring nothing 
for her. It was like their artful selfishness always to tell her when 



318 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

they came back, under pretence of confidence and friendship, all 
those details about where they had been, and what they had 
done and seen, and how often they had said, "0! If we had 
only darling little Kitty here ! " Here indeed ! I dare say ! 
When they came back after the holidays, they were used to being 
received by Kitty, and to saying that coming to Kitty was like 
coming to another home. Very well then, why did they go away ? 
If they meant it, why did they go away 1 Let them answer that. 
But they didn't mean it, and couldn't answer that, and they didn't 
tell the truth, and people who didn't tell the truth were hateful. 
When they came back next time, they should be received in a new 
manner; they should be avoided and shunned. 

And there, the while she sat all alone revolving how ill she was 
used, and how much better she was than the people who were not 
alone, the wedding breakfast was going on : no question of it ! 
With a nasty great bride-cake, and with those ridiculous orange- 
flowers, and with that conceited bride, and that hideous bridegroom, 
and those heartless bridesmaids, and Miss Pupford stuck up at the 
table ! They thought they were enjoying themselves, but it would 
come home to them one day to have thought so. They would all 
be dead in a few years, let them enjoy themselves ever so much. 
It was a religious comfort to know that. 

It was such a comfort to know it, that little Miss Kitty Kim- 
meens suddenly sprang from the chair in which she had been 
musing in a corner, and cried out, " those envious thoughts are 
not mine, this wicked creature isn't me ! Help me, somebody ! 
I go wrong, alone by my weak self ! Help me, anybody ! " 

" — Miss Kimmeens is not a professed philosopher, sir," said 
Mr. Traveller, presenting her at the barred window, and smoothing 
her shining hair, " but I apprehend' there was some tincture 
of philosophy in her words, and in the prompt action with which 
she followed them. That action was, to emerge from her unnatu- 
ral solitude, and look abroad for wholesome sympathy, to bestow 
and to receive. Her footsteps strayed to this gate, bringing her 
here by chance, as an apposite contrast to you. The child came 
out, sir. If you have the wisdom to learn from a child (but I 
doubt it, for that requires more wisdom than one in your condition 
would seem to possess), you cannot do better than imitate the 
child, and come out too — from that very demoralising hutch of 
yours." 



TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND 319 

Chapter III. 

PICKING UP THE TINKER. 

It was now sunset. The Hermit had betaken himself to his bed 
of cinders half an hour ago, and lying on it in his blanket and 
skewer with his back to the window, took not the smallest heed of 
the appeal addressed to him. 

All that had been said for the last two hours, had been said to a 
tinkling accompaniment performed by the Tinker, who had got to 
work upon some villager's pot or kettle, and wais working briskly 
outside. This music still continuing, seemed to. put it into Mr. 
Traveller's mind to have another word or two with the Tinker. So, 
holding Miss Kimmeens (with whom he was now on the most friendly 
terms) by the hand, he went out at the gate to where the Tinker 
was seated at his work on the patch of grass on the opposite side 
of the road, with his wallet of tools open before him, and his little 
fire smoking. 

" I am glad to see you employed," said Mr. Traveller. 

"I am glad to he employed," returned the Tinker, looking up as 
he put the finishing touches to his job. " But why are you glad ? " 

" I thought you were a lazy fellow when I saw you this morning." 

" I was only disgusted," said the Tinker. 

" Do you mean with the fine weather ? " 

" With the fine weather 1 " repeated the Tinker, staring. 

"You told me you were not particular as to weather, and I 
thought — " 

" Ha, ha ! How should such as me get on, if we was particular 
as to weather 1 We must take it as it comes, and make the best of 
it. There's something good in all weathers. If it don't happen to 
be good for my work to-day, jt's good for some other man's to-day, 
and will come round to me to-morrow. We must all live." 

" Pray shake hands," said Mr. Traveller. 

" Take care, sir," was the Tinker's caution, as he reached up his 
hand in surprise ; "the black comes off"." 

"I am glad of it," said Mr. Traveller. " I have been for several 
liours among other black that does not come off." 

" You are speaking of Tom in there ?" 

"Yes." 

" Well now," said the Tinker, blowing the dust off his job : which 
was finished. " An't it enough to disgust a pig, if he could give 
his mind to it 1 " 

"If he could give his mind to it," returned the other, smiling, 
" the probability is that he wouldn't be a pig." 



320 TOM TIDDLER'S GROUND. 

" There you clench the nail," returned the Tinker. " Then what's 
to be said for Tom ? " 

" Truly, veiy little." 

" Truly nothing you mean, sir," said the Tinker, as he put away 
his tools. 

" A better answer, and (I freely acknowledge) my meaning. I 
infer that he was the cause of your disgust ? " 

" Why, look'ee here, sir," said the Tinker, rising to his feet, and 
wiping his face on the corner of his black apron energetically ; "I 
leave you to judge ! — I ask you ! — Last night I has a job that 
needs to be done in the night, and I works all night. Well, there's 
nothing in that. But this morning I comes along this road here, 
looking for a sunny and soft spot to sleep in, and I sees this deso- 
lation and ruination. I've lived myself in desolation and ruination ; 
I knows many a fellow-creetur that's forced to live life long in desola- 
tion and ruination ; and I sits me down and takes pity on it, as I 
casts my eyes about. Then comes up the long-winded one as I told 
you of, from that gate, and spins himself out like a silkworm con- 
cerning the Donkey (if my Donkey at home will excuse me) as has 
made it all — made it of his own choice ! And tells me, if you 
please, of his likewise choosing to go ragged and naked, and 
grimy — maskerading, mountebanking, in what is the real hard lot 
of thousands and thousands ! Why, then I say it's a unbearable 
and nonsensical piece of inconsistency, and I'm disgusted. I'm 
ashamed and disgusted ! " 

" I wish you would come and look at him," said Mr. Traveller, 
clapping the Tinker on the shoulder. 

" Not I, sir," he rejoined. " / an't a going to flatter him up by 
looking at him ! " 

" But he is asleep." 

" Are you sure he is asleep ? " asked the Tinker, with an unwill- 
ing air, as he shouldered his wallet. 

" Sure." 

" Then I'll look at him for a quarter of a minute," said the Tinker, 
"since you so much wish it ; but not a moment longer." 

They all three went back across the road ; and, through the barred 
window, by the dying glow of the sunset coming in at the gate — 
which the child held open for its admission — he could be pretty 
clearly discerned lying on his bed. 

" You see him 1 " asked Mr. Traveller. 

"Yes," returned the Tinker, "and he's worse than I thought him." 

Mr. Traveller then whispered in few words what he had done 
since morning ; and asked the Tinker what he thought of that 1 

" I think," returned the Tinker, as he turned from the window, 
" that you've wasted a day on him." 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 321 

"I think so too; though not, I hope, upon myself. 'Do you 
happen to be going anywhere near the Peal of Bells 1 " 

" That's my direct way, sir," said the Tinker. 

" I invite you to supper there. And as I learn from this young 
lady that she goes some three-quarters of a mile in the same direc- 
tion, we will drop her on the road, and we will spare time to keep 
her company at her garden gate until her own Bella comes home." 

So, Mr. Traveller, and the child, and the Tinker, went along very 
amicably in the sweet-scented evening ; and the moral with which 
the Tinker dismissed the subject was, that he said in his trade that 
metal that rotted for want of use, had better be left to rot, and 
couldn't rot too soon, considering how much true metal rotted from 
over-use and hard service. 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

IN FOUR CHAPTERS. 

Chapter I. 

HIS LEAVING IT TILL CALLED FOR. 

The writer of these humble lines being a Waiter, and having 
come of a family of Waiters, and owning at the present time five 
brothers who are all Waiters, and likewise an only sister who is a 
Waitress, would wish to offer a few words respecting his calling; 
first having the pleasure of hereby in a friendly manner offering the 
Dedication of the same unto Joseph, much respected Head Waiter 
at the Slamjam Coffee-house, London, E.C., than which a individual 
more eminently deserving of the name of man, or a more amenable 
honour to his own head and heart, whether considered in the light 
of a Waiter or regarded as a human being, do not exist. 

In case confusion should arise in the public mind (which it is 
open to confusion on many subjects) respecting what is meant or im- 
plied by the term Waiter, the present humble lines would wish to 
offer an explanation. It may not be generally known that the per- 
son as goes out to wait is not a Waiter. It may not be generally 
known that the hand as is called in extra, at the Freemasons' 
Tavern, or the London, or the Albion, or otherwise, is not a 
Waiter. Such hands may be took on for Public Dinners by the 
bushel (and you may know them by their breathing with difficulty 
when in attendance, and taking away the bottle ere yet it is half 
out) ; but such are not Waiters. For you cannot lay down the 



322 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

tailoring, or the shoemaking, or the brokering, or the green- 
grocering, or the pictorial-periodicaUing, or the second-hand ward- 
robe, or the small fancy businesses, — you cannot lay down those 
lines of life at your will and pleasure by the half-day or evening, 
and take up Waitering. You may suppose you can, but you can- 
not ; or you may go so far as to say you do, but you do not. Xor yet 
can you lay down the gentleman's-service when stimulated by pro- 
longed incompatibility on the part of Cooks (and here it may be 
remarked that Cooking and Incompatibility will be mostly found 
united), and take up waitering. It has been ascertained that what 
a gentleman will sit meek under, at home, he will not bear out of 
doors, at the Slamjam or any similar establishment. Then, what 
is the inference to be drawn respecting true Waitering ? You must 
be bred to it. You must be born to it. 

Would you know how born to it. Fair Reader, — if of the 
adorable female sex ? Then learn from the biographical experience 
of one that is a Waiter in the sixty-first year of his age. 

You were conveyed, — ere yet your dawning powers were other- 
wise developed than to harbour vacancy in your inside, — you were 
conveyed, by surreptitious means, into a pantry adjoining the 
Admiral Nelson, Civic and General Dining-Rooms, there to receive 
by stealth that healthful sustenance which is the pride and boast 
of the British female constitution. Your mother was married to 
your father (himself a distant Waiter) in the profoundest secrecy ; 
for a Waitress known to be married would ruin the best of businesses, 
— it is the same as on the stage. Hence your being smuggled 
into the pantry, and that — to add to the infliction — by an un- 
willing grandmother. Under the combined influence of the smells 
of roast and boiled, and soup, and gas, and malt liquors, you par- 
took of your earliest nourishment ; your unwilling grandmother 
sitting prepared to catch you when your mother was called and 
dropped you ; your grandmother's shawl ever ready to stifle your 
natural complainings ; your innocent mind surrounded by uncongenial 
cruets, dirty plates, dish-covers, and cold gravy ; your mother calling 
down the pipe for veals and porks, instead of soothing you with 
nursery rhymes. Under these untoward circumstances you were 
early weaned. Your unwilling grandmother, ever growing more 
unwilling as your food assimilated less, then contracted habits of 
shaking you till your system curdled, and your food would not 
assimilate at all. At length she was no longer spared, and could 
have been thankfully spared much sooner. When your brothers 
began to appear in succession, your mother retired, left off" her 
smart dressing (she had previously been a smart dresser), and her 
dark ringlets (which had previously been flowing), and haunted 




somebody's luggage. 



324 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

your father late of nights, lying in wait for him, through all 
weathers, up the shabby court which led to the back door of the 
Royal Old Dust-Bin (said to have been so named by George the 
Fourth), where your father was Head. But the Dust-Bin was 
going down then, and your father took but little, — excepting from 
a liquid point of view. Your mother's object in those visits was of 
a housekeeping character, and you were set on to whistle your 
father out. Sometimes he came out, but generally not. Come or 
not, however, all that part of his existence which was unconnected 
with open Waitering was kept a close secret, and was acknowledged 
by your mother to be a close secret, and you and your mother flitted 
about the court, close secrets both of you, and would scarcely have 
confessed under torture that you knew your fiither, or that your 
father had any name than Dick (which wasn't his name, though 
he was never known by any other), or that he had kith or kin or 
chick or child. Perhaps the attraction of this mystery, combined 
with your father's having a damp compartment to himself, behind 
a leaky cistern, at the Dust-Bin, — a sort of a cellar compartment, 
with a sink in it, and a smell, and a plate-rack, and a bottle-rack, 
and three windows that didn't match each other or anything else, 
and no daylight, — caused your young mind to feel convinced that 
you must grow up to be a Waiter too ; but you did feel convinced of 
it, and so did all your brothers, down to your sister. Every one of 
you felt convinced that you was born to the Waitering. At this 
stage of your career, what was your feelings one day when your 
father came home to your mother in open broad daylight, — of 
itself an act of Madness on the part of a Waiter, — and took to 
his bed (leastwise, your mother and family's bed), with the state- 
ment that his eyes were devilled kidneys. Physicians being in 
vain, your father expired, after repeating at intervals for a day and 
a night, when gleams of reason and old business fitfully illuminated 
his being, " Two and two is five. And three is sixpence." Interred 
in the parochial department of the neighbouring churchyard, and 
accompanied to the grave by as many Waiters of long standing as 
could spare the morning time from their soiled glasses (namely, 
one), your bereaved form was attired in a white neckankecher, and 
you was took on from motives of benevolence at The George and 
Gridiron, theatrical and supper. Here, supporting nature on what 
you found in the plates (which was as it happened, and but too 
often thoughtlessly, immersed in mustard), and on what you found 
in the glasses (which rarely went beyond driblets and lemon), by 
night you dropped asleep standing, till you was cufi'ed awake, and 
by day was set to polishing every individual article in the coftee- 
room. Your couch being sawdust ; your counterpane being ashes 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 325 

of cigars. Here, frequently hiding a heavy heart under the smart 
tie of your white neckankecher (or correctly speaking lower down 
and more to the left), you picked up the rudiments of knowledge 
from an extra, by the name of Bishops, and by calling plate-washer, 
and gradually elevating your mind with chalk on the back of the 
corner-box partition, until such time as you used the inkstand 
when it was out of hand, attained to manhood, and to be the 
Waiter that you find yourself. 

I could wish here to offer a few respectful words on behalf of 
the calling so long the calling of myself and family, and the public 
interest in which is but too often very limited. ,We are not gener- 
ally understood. No, we are not. Allowance enough is not made 
for us. For, say that we ever show a little drooping listlessness 
of spirits, or what might be termed indifierence or apathy. Put it 
to yourself what would your own state of mind be, if you was one 
of an enormous family, every member of which except you was al- 
ways greedy, and in a hurry. Put it to yourself that you was reg- 
ularly replete with animal food at the slack hours of one in the day 
and again at nine p.m., and that the repleter you was, the more 
voracious all your fellow-creatures came in. Put it to yourself 
that it was your business, when your digestion was well on, to take 
a personal interest and sympathy in a hundred gentlemen fresh and 
fresh (say, for the sake of argument, only a hundred), whose imagi- 
nations was given up to grease and fat and gravy and melted 
butter, and abandoned to questioning you about cuts of this, and 
dishes of that, — each of 'em going on as if him and you and the 
bill of fare was alone in the world. Then look what you are ex- 
pected to know. You are never out, but they seem to think you 
regularly attend everywhere. " What's this, Christopher, that I 
hear about the smashed Excursion Train ? " — " How are they doing 
at the Italian Opera, Christopher ? " — " Christopher, what are the 
real particulars of this business at the Yorkshire Bank 1 " Simi- 
larly a ministry gives me more trouble than it gives the Queen. 
As to Lord Palmerston, the constant and wearing connection into 
which I have been brought with his lordship during the last few 
years is deserving of a pension. Then look at the Hypocrites we 
are made, and the lies (white, I hope) that are forced upon us ! 
Why must a sedentary-pursuited Waiter be considered to be a 
judge of horseflesh, and to have a most tremenjous interest in horse- 
training and racing ? Yet it would be half our little incomes out 
of our pockets if we didn't take on to have those sporting tastes. 
It is the same (inconceivable why ! ) with Farming. Shooting, 
equally so. I am sure that so regular as the months of August, 
September, and October come round, I am ashamed of myself in 



326 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

my own private bosom for the way in which I make believe to care 
whether or not the grouse is strong on the wing (much their wings, 
or drumsticks either, signifies to me, uncooked ! ), and whether the 
partridges is plentiful among the turnips, and whether the pheas- 
ants is shy or bold, or anything else you please to mention. Yet you 
may see me, or any other Waiter of my standing, holding on by the 
back of the box, and leaning over a gentleman with his purse out and 
his bill before him, discussing these points in a confidential tone of 
voice^as if my happiness in life entirely depended on 'em. 

I have mentioned our little incomes. Look at the most unreason- 
able point of all, and the point on which the greatest injustice is 
done us ! Whether it is owing to our always carrying so much 
change in our right-hand trousers-pocket, and so many halfpence in 
our coat-tails, or whether it is human nature (which I were loth 
to believe), what is meant by the everlasting fable that Head Waiters 
is rich ? How did that fable get into circulation ? Who first put 
it about, and what are the facts to establish the unblushing state- 
ment? Come forth, thou slanderer, and refer the public to the 
Waiter's will in Doctors' Commons supporting thy malignant hiss ! 
Yet this is so commonly dwelt upon — especially by the screws 
who give Waiters the least — that denial is vain ; and we are 
obliged, for our credit's sake, to carry our heads as if we were going 
into a business, when of the two we are much more likely to go 
into a union. There was formerly a screw as frequented the Slam- 
jam ere yet the present writer had quitted that establishment on 
a question of tea-ing his assistant staft' out of his own pocket, which 
screw carried the taunt to its bitterest height. Never soaring 
above threepence, and as often as not grovelling on the earth a 
penny lower, he yet represented the present writer as a large holder 
of Consols, a lender of money on mortgage, a Capitalist. He has 
been overheard to dilate to other customers on the allegation that 
the present writer put out thousands of pounds at interest in 
Distilleries and Breweries. "Well, Christopher," he would say 
(having grovelled his lowest on the earth, half a moment before), 
" looking out for a House to open, eh ? Can't find a business to be 
disposed of on a scale as is up to your resources, humph ? " To 
such a dizzy precipice of falsehood has this misrepresentation taken 
wing, that the well-known and highly-respected Old Charles, 
long eminent at the West Country Hotel, and by some considered 
the Father of the Waitering, found himself under the obligation to 
fall into it through so many years that his own wife (for he had an 
unbeknown old lady in that capacity towards himself) believed it ! 
And what was the consequence ? When he was borne to his grave 
on the shoulders of six picked Waiters, with six more for change, 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 327 

six more acting as pall-bearers, all keeping step in a pouring shower 
without a dry eye visible, and a concourse only inferior to Royalty, 
his pantry and lodgings was equally ransacked high and low for 
property, and none was found ! How could it be found, when, 
beyond his last monthly collection of walking-sticks, umbrellas, and 
pocket-handkerchiefs (which happened to have been not yet disposed 
of, though he had ever been through life punctual in clearing off his 
collections by the month), there was no property existing ? Such, 
however, is the force of this universal libel, that the widow of 
Old Charles, at the present hour an inmate of the Almshouses of 
the Cork-Cutters' Company, in Blue Anchor-road (identified sitting 
at the door of one of 'em, in a clean cap and a Windsor arm-chair, 
only last Monday), expects John's hoarded wealth to be found 
hourly ! Nay, ere yet he had succumbed to the grisly dart, and 
when his portrait was painted in oils life-size, by subscription of 
the frequenters of the West Country, to hang over the coffee-room 
chimney-piece, there were not wanting those who contended that 
what is termed the accessories of such a portrait ought to be the Bank 
of England out of window, and a strong-box on the table. And but 
for better-regulated minds contending for a bottle and screw and 
the attitude of drawing, — and carrying their point, — it would 
have been so handed down to posterity. 

I am now brought to the title of the present remarks. Having, 
I hope without offence to any quarter, offered such observations as 
I felt it my duty to offer, in a free country which has ever dominated 
the seas, on the general subject, I will now proceed to wait on the 
particular question. 

At a momentous period of my life, when I was off, so far as 
concerned notice given, with a House that shall be nameless, — for 
the question on which I took my departing stand was a fixed charge 
for waiters, and no House as commits itself to that eminently Un- 
English act of more than foolishness and baseness shall be adver- 
tised by me, — I repeat, at a momentous crisis, when I was off 
with a House too mean for mention, and not yet on with that to 
which I have ever since had the honour of being attached in the 
capacity of Head,^ I was casting about what to do next. Then it 
were that proposals were made to me on behalf of my present es- 
tablishment. Stipulations were necessary on my part, emendations 
were necessary on my part : in the end, ratifications ensued on both 
sides, and I entered on a new career. 

We are a bed business, and a coffee-room business. We are not 
a general dining business, nor do we wish it. In consequence, 

1 Its name and address at length, with other full particulars, all editori- 
ally struck out. 



328 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

when diners drop in, we know what to give 'em as will keep 'em 
away another time. We are a Private Room or Family business 
also ; but Coffee-room principal. Me and the Directory and the 
Writing Materials and cetrer occupy a place to ourselves — a place 
fended off up a step or two at the end of the Coffee-room, in what 
I call the good old-fashioned style. The good old-fashioned style 
is, that whatever you want, down to a wafer, you must be olely 
and solely dependent on the Head Waiter for. You must put 
yourself a new-born Child into his hands. There is no other way 
in which a business untinged with Continental Vice can be con- 
ducted. (It were bootless to add, that if languages is required to 
be jabbered and English is not good enough, both families and 
gentlemen had better go somewhere else.) 

When I began to settle down in this right-principled and well- 
conducted House, I noticed, under the bed in No. 24 B (which it 
is up a angle off the staircase, and usually put off upon the lowly- 
minded), a heap of things in a corner. I asked our Head Chamber- 
maid in the course of the day, 

" What are them things in 24 B ? " 

To which she answered with a careless air, 

" Somebody's Luggage." 

Regarding her with a eye not free from severity, I says, 

" Whose Luggage 1 " 

Evading my eye, she replied, 

" Lor ! How should / know ! " 

— Being, it may be right to mention, a female of some pertness, 
though acquainted with her business. 

A Head Waiter must be either Head or Tail. He must be at 
one extremity or the other of the social scale. He cannot be at 
the waist of it, or anywhere else but the extremities. It is for him 
to decide which of the extremities. 

On the eventful occasion under consideration, I give Mrs. Prat- 
chett so distinctly to understand my decision, that I broke her 
spirit as towards myself, then and there, and for good. Let not 
inconsistency be suspected on account of my mentioning Mrs. Prat- 
chett as "Mrs.," and having formerly remarked that a waitress 
must not be married. Readers are respectfully requested to notice 
that Mrs. Pratchett was not a waitress, but a chambermaid. Now 
a chambermaid may be married ; if Head, generally is married, — 
or says so. It comes to the same thing as expressing what is cus- 
tomary. (N.B. Mr. Pratchett is in Australia, and his address 
there is "the Bush.") 

Having took Mrs. Pratchett down as many pegs as was essential to 
the future happiness of all parties, I requested her to explain herself. 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 329 

"For instance," I says, to give her a little encouragement, "who 
is Somebody 1 " 

"I give you my sacred honour, Mr. Christopher," answers Prat- 
chett, "that I haven't the faintest notion." 

Bn^- ^-"v the manner in which she settled her cap-strings, I should 
iiave doubted this ; but in respect of positiveness it was hardly to 
be discriminated from an affidavit. 

" Then you never saw him 1 " I followed her up with. 

" Nor yet," said Mrs. Pratchett, shutting her eyes and making 
as if she had just took a pill of unusual circumference, — which 
gave a remarkable force to her denial, — "nor, yet any servant 
in this house. All have been changed, Mr. Christopher, within 
five year, and Somebody left his Luggage here before then." 

Inquiry of Miss Martin yielded (in the language of the Bard of 
A 1) "confirmation strong." So it had really and truly happened. 
Miss Martin is the young lady at the bar as makes out our bills ; 
and though higher than I could wish considering her station, is 
perfectly well-behaved. 

Farther investigations led to the disclosure that there was a bill 
against this Luggage to the amount of two sixteen six. The Lug- 
gage had been lying under the bedstead of 24 B over six year. 
The bedstead is a four-poster, with a deal old hanging and valance, 
and is, as I once said, probably connected with more than 24 Bs, 
— which I remember my hearers was pleased to laugh at, at the 
time. 

I don't know why, — when do we know why ? — but this Lug- 
gage laid heavy on my mind. I fell a wondering about Some- 
body, and what he had got and been up to. I couldn't satisfy my 
thoughts why he should leave so much Luggage against so small a 
bill. For I had the Luggage out within a day or two and turned 
it over, and the following were the items : — A black portmanteau, 
a black bag, a desk, a dressing-case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat- 
box, and an umbrella strapped to a walking-stick. It was all 
very dusty and fiuey. I had our porter up to get under the bed 
and fetch it out ; and though he habitually wallows in dust, — 
swims in it from morning to night, and wears a close-fitting waist- 
coat with black caHmanco sleeves for the purpose, — it made him 
sneeze again, and his throat was that hot with it that it was 
obliged to be cooled with a drink of Allsopp's draft. 

The Luggage so got the better of me, that instead of having it 
put back when it was well dusted and washed with a wet cloth, — 
previous to which it was so covered with feathers that you might 
have thought it was turning into poultry, and would by-and-bye 
begin to Lay, — I say, instead of having it put back, I had it car- 



330 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 



ried into one of my places down-stairs. There from time to time 
I stared at it and stared at it, till it seemed to grow big and grow 
little, and come forward at me and retreat again, and go through all 
manner of performances resembling intoxication. When this had 
lasted weeks, — I may say months, and not be far out, — I one 
day thought of asking Miss Martin for the particulars of the Two 
sixteen six total. She was so obliging as to extract it from the 
books, —it dating before her time, — and here follows a true copy : 



Coffee-Room, 












1856. No. 4. 


£ 


s. 


d. 


Feb. 2d, Pen and Paper . . . • . 








6 


Port Negus 









2 





Ditto . 









2 





Pen and paper 












6 


Tumbler broken . 









2 


6 


Brandy 









2 





Pen and paper . 












6 


Anchovy toast 









2 


6 


Pen and paper 












6 


Bed . 









3 





Feb. 3d, Pen and paper . 












6 


Breakfast . 









2 


6 


" Broiled ham 









2 





Eggs 









1 





" Watercresses 







1 





" Shrimps 







1 





Pen and paper 










6 


Blotting-paper 










6 


Messenger to Paternoster-row 


and back . 





1 


6 


Again, when No Answer 







1 


6 


Brandy 2s., Devilled Pork chop 2s. 





4 





Pens and paper 





1 





Messenger to Albemarle-street and back 





1 





Again (detained), when No Answer 





1 


6 


Salt-cellar broken 





3 


6 


Large Liqueur-glass Orange Brandy 





1 


6 


Dinner, Soup, Fish, Joint, and bird 





7 


6 


Bottle old East India Brown 


. 


8 





Pen and paper .... 


. 





6 




£2 


16 


6 



Mem. : January 1st, 1857. He went out after dinner, directing 
Luggage to be ready when he called for it. Never called. 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 331 

So far from throwing a light upon the subject, this bill appeared 
to me, if I may so express my doubts, to involve it in a yet more 
lurid halo. Speculating it over with the Mistress, she informed 
me that the luggage had been advertised in the Master's time as 
being to be sold after such and such a day to pay expenses, but 
no farther steps had been taken. (I may here remark, that the 
Mistress is a widow in her fourth year. The Master was possessed 
of one of those unfortunate constitutions in which Spirits turns to 
Water, and rises in the ill-starred Victim.) 

My speculating it over, not then only, but repeatedly, sometimes 
with the Mistress, sometimes with one, sometimes with another, 
led up to the Mistress's saying to me, — whether at first in joke 
or in earnest, or half joke and half earnest, it matters not : 

" Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer." 

(If this should meet her eye, — a lovely blue, — may she not 
take it ill ray mentioning that if I had been eight or ten year 
younger, I would have done as much by her ! That is, I would 
have made her a offer. It is for others than me to denominate it 
a handsome one.) 

"Christopher, I am going to make you a handsome offer." 

" Put a name to it, ma'am." 

" Look here, Christopher. Run over the articles of Somebody's 
Luggage. You've got it all by heart, I know." 

" A black portmanteau, ma'am, a black bag, a desk, a dressing- 
case, a brown-paper parcel, a hat-box, and an umbrella strapped to 
a walking-stick." 

" All just as they were left. Nothing opened, nothing tampered 
with." 

" You are right, ma'am. All locked but the brown-paper par- 
cel, and that sealed." 

The Mistress was leaning on Miss Martin's desk at the bar- 
window, and she taps the open book that lays upon the desk, — 
she has a pretty-made hand to be sure, — and bobs her head over 
it and laughs. 

" Come," says she, " Christopher. Pay me Somebody's bill, and 
you shall have Somebody's Luggage." 

I rather took to the idea from the first moment; but, 

" It mayn't be worth the money," I objected, seeming to hold 
back. 

" That's a Lottery," says, the Mistress, folding her arms upon the 
book, — it an't her hands alone that's pretty made, the observa- 
tion extends right up her arms. " Won't you venture two pound 
sixteen shillings and sixpence in the Lottery 1 Why, there's no 
blanks ! " says the Mistress, laughing and bobbing her head again, 



332 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

"you must win. If you lose, you must win! All prizes in this 
Lottery ! Draw a blank, and remember, Gentlemen-Sportsmen, 
you'll still be entitled to a black portmanteau, a black bag, a desk, 
a dressing-case, a sheet of brown paper, a hat-box, and an umbrella 
strapped to a walking-stick ! " 

To make short of it, Miss Martin come round me, and Mrs. 
Pratchett come round me, and the Mistress she was completely 
round me already, and all the women in the house come round me, 
and if it had been Sixteen two instead of Two sixteen, I should 
have thought myself well out of it. For what can you do when 
they do come round you 1 

So I paid the money — down — and such a laughing as there 
was among 'em ! But I turned the tables on 'em regularly, when 
I said : 

"My family-name is Blue-Beard. I'm going to open Some- 
body's Luggage all alone in the Secret Chamber, and not a female 
eye catches sight of the contents ! " 

Whether I thought proper to have the firmness to keep to this, 
don't signify, or whether any female eye, and if any, how many, 
was really present when the opening of the Luggage came off. 
Somebody's Luggage is the question at present : Nobody's eyes, nor 
yet noses. 

What I still look at most, in connection with that Luggage, is 
the extraordinary quantity of writing-paper, and all written on ! 
And not our paper neither, — not the paper charged in the bill, for 
we know our paper, — so he must have been always at it. And 
he had crumpled up this writing of his, everywhere, in every 
part and parcel of his luggage. There was writing in his dressing- 
case, writing in his boots, writing among his shaving-tackle, writing 
in his hat-box, writing folded away down among the very whale- 
bones of his umbrella. 

His clothes wasn't bad, what there was of 'em. His dressing- 
case was poor, — not a particle of silver stopper, — bottle aper- 
tures with nothing in 'em, like empty little dog-kennels, — and a 
most searching description of tooth-powder diffusing itself around, 
as under a deluded mistake that all the chinks in the fittings ^vas 
divisions in teeth. His clothes I parted with, well enough, to a 
secondhand dealer not far from Saint Clement's Danes, in the Strand, 
— him as the officers in the Army mostly dispose of their uniforms 
to, when hard pressed with debts of honour, if I may judge from 
their coats and epaulets diversifying the window with their backs 
towards the public. The same party bought in one lot the port- 
manteau, the bag, the desk, the dressing-case, the hat-box, the 
umbrella, strap, and walking-stick. On my remarking that I 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 333 

should have thought those articles not quite in his line, he said : 
"No more ith a man'th grandmother, Mithter Chrithtopher ; but 
if any man will bring hith grandmother here, and offer her at a fair 
trifle below what the'll feth with good luck when the'th thcoured 
and turned — I'll buy her ! " 

These transactions brought me home, and, indeed, more than 
home, for they left a goodish profit on the original investment. 
And now there remained tlie writings ; and the writings I particu- 
lar wish to bring under the candid attention of the reader. 

I wish to do so without postponement, for this reason. That is 
to say, namely, viz. i.e., as follows, thus : — Before I proceed to 
recount the mental sufferings of which I became the prey in con- 
sequence of the writings, and before following up that harrowing 
tale with a statement of the wonderful and impressive catastrophe^ 
as thrilling in its nature as unlooked for in any other capacity' 
which crowned the ole and filled the cup of unexpectedness to over- 
flowing, the writings themselves ought to stand forth to view. 
Therefore it is that they now come next. One word to introduce 
them, and I lay down my pen (I hope, my unassuming pen) until 
I take it up to trace the gloomy sequel of a mind with something 
on it. 

He was a smeary writer, and wrote a dreadful bad hand. Utterly 
regardless of ink, he lavished it on every undeserving object, — on 
his clothes, his desk, his hat, the handle of his tooth-brush, his um- 
brella. Ink was found freely on the coffee-room carpet by No. 4 
table, and two blots was on his restless couch. A reference to the 
document I have given entire will show that on the morning of the 
third of February, eighteen fifty-six, he procured his no less than 
fifth pen and paper. To whatever deplorable act of ungovernable 
composition he immolated those materials obtained from the bar, 
there is no doubt that the fatal deed was committed in bed, and 
that it left its evidences but too plainly, long afterwards, upon the 
pillow-case. 

He had put no Heading to any of his ^v^itings. Alas ! Was he 
likely to have a Heading without a Head, and where was his Head 
when he took such things into it? In some cases, such as his 
Boots, he would appear to have hid the writings ; thereby involv- 
ing his style in greater obscurity. But his Boots was at least pairs, 
— and no two of his writings can put in any claim to be so regarded. 
Here follows (not to give more specimens) what was found in 



334 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

Chapter II. 

HIS BOOTS. 

"Eh! well then, Monsieur Mutuel! What do I know, what 
can I say ? I assure you that he calls himself Monsieur The Eng- 
lishman." 

" Pardon. But I think it is impossible," said Monsieur Mutuel, 
— a spectacled, snuffy, stooping old gentleman in carpet shoes and 
a cloth cap with a peaked shade, a loose blue frock-coat reaching to 
his heels, a large limp white shirt-frill, and cravat to correspond, — 
that is to say, white was the natural colour of his linen on Sundays, 
but it toned down with the week. 

" It is," repeated Monsieur Mutuel, his amiable old walnut-shell 
countenance very walnut-shelly indeed as he smiled and blinked in 
the bright morning sunlight, — "it is, my cherished Madame Bou- 
clet, I think, impossible ! " 

" Hey ! " (with a little vexed cry and a great many tosses of her 
head.) "But it is not impossible that you are a Pig!" retorted 
Madame Bouclet, a compact Uttle woman of thirty-five or so. " See 
then, — look there, — read ! ' On the second floor Monsieur L' An- 
glais.' Is it not so?" 

" It is so," said Monsieur Mutuel. 

" Good. Continue your morning walk. Get out ! " Madame 
Bouclet dismissed him with a lively snap of her fingers. 

The morning walk of Monsieur Mutuel was in the brightest 
patch that the sun made in the Grande Place of a dull old fortified 
French to^\^l. The manner of his morning walk was with his hands 
crossed behind him; an umbrella, in figure the express image of 
himself, always in one hand ; a snuff-box in the other. Thus, with 
the shuffling gate of the Elephant (who really does deal with the 
very worst trousers-maker employed by the Zoological world, and 
who appeared to have recommended him to Monsieur Mutuel), the 
old gentleman sunned himself daily when sun was to be had — of 
course, at the same time sunning a red ribbon at his button-hole ; 
for was he not an ancient Frenchman ? 

Being told by one of the angelic sex to continue his morning walk 
and get out, Monsieur Mutuel laughed a walnut-shell laugh, pulled 
off his cap at arm's length with the hand that contained his snuff- 
box, kept it off for a considerable period after he had parted from 
Madame Bouclet, and continued his morning walk and got out, like 
a man of gallantry as he was. 

The documentary evidence to which Madame Bouclet had referred 
Monsieur Mutuel was the list of her lodgers, sweetly written forth 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 335 

by her own Nephew and Bookkeeper, who held the pen of an Angel, 
and posted up at the side of her gateway, for the information of the 
Police: "Au second, M. L'Anglais, Propridtaire." On the second 
floor, Mr. The Englishman, man of property. So it stood ; nothing 
could be plainer. 

Madame Bouclet now traced the line with her forefinger, as it 
were to confirm and settle herself in her parting snap at Monsieur 
Mutuel, and so placing her right hand on her hip with a defiant air, 
as if nothing should ever tempt her to unsnap that snap, strolled 
out into the Place to glance up at the windows of Mr. The English- 
man. That worthy happening to be looking out of window at the 
moment, Madame Bouclet gave him a graceful salutation with her 
head, looked to the right and looked to the left to account to him 
for her being there, considered for a moment, like one who accounted 
to herself for somebody she had expected not being there, and re-en- 
tered her own gateway. Madame Bouclet let all her house giving 
on the Place in furnished flats or floors, and lived up the yard be- 
hind in company with Monsieur Bouclet her husband (great at bill- 
iards), an inherited brewing business, several fowls, two carts, a 
nephew, a little dog in a big kennel, a grape-vine, a counting-house, 
four horses, a married sister (with a share in the brewing business), 
the husband and two children of the married sister, a parrot, a 
drum (performed on by the little boy of the married sister), two 
billeted soldiers, a quantity of pigeons, a fife (played by the nephew 
in a ravishing manner), several domestics and supernumeraries, a 
perpetual flavour of coffee and soup, a terrific range of artificial 
rocks and wooden precipices at least four feet high, a small foun- 
tain, and half a dozen large sunflowers. 

Now the Englishman, in taking his Appartement, — or, as one 
might say on our side of the Channel, his set of chambers, — had 
given his name, correct to the letter, Langley. But as he had a 
British way of not opening his mouth very wide on foreign soil, ex- 
cept at meals, the Brewery had been able to make nothing of it but 
L'Anglais. So Mr. The Englishman he had become and he remained. 

" Never saw such a people ! " muttered Mr. The Englishman, as he 
now looked out of window. " Never did, in my life ! " 

This was true enough, for he had never before been out of his 
own country, — a right little island, a tight little island, a bright 
little island, a show-fight little island, and full of merit of all sorts ; 
but not the whole round world. 

" These chaps," said Mr. The Englishman to himself, as his eye 
rolled over the Place, sprinkled with military here and there, "are 
no more like soldiers — " Nothing being sufficiently strong for the 
end of his sentence, he left it unended. 



336 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

This again (from the point of view of his experience) was strictly- 
correct ; for though there was a great agglomeration of soldiers in 
the town and neighbouring country, you might have held a grand 
Review and Field-day of them every one, and looked in vain among 
them all for a soldier choking behind his foolish stock, or a soldier 
lamed by his ill-fitting shoes, or a soldier deprived of the use of his 
limbs by straps and buttons, or a soldier elaborately forced to be 
self-helpless in all the small affairs of life. A swarm of brisk, bright, 
active, bustling, handy, odd, skirmishing fellows, able to turn cleverly 
at anything, from a siege to soup, from great guns to needles and 
thread, from the broadsword exercise to slicing an onion, from mak- 
ing war to making omelets, was all you would have found. 

What a swarm ! From the Great Place under the eye of Mr. 
The Englishman, where a few awkward squads from the last con- 
scription were doing the goose-step — some members of those squads 
still as to their bodies, in the chrysalis peasant-state of Blouse, and 
only military butterflies as to their regimentally-clothed legs — from 
the Great Place, away outside the fortifications, and away for miles 
along the dusty roads, soldiers swarmed. All day long, upon the 
grass-grown ramparts of the town, practising soldiers trumpeted and 
bugled ; all day long, down in angles of dry trenches, practising sol- 
diers drummed and drummed. Every forenoon, soldiers burst out 
of the great barracks into the sandy gymnasium-ground hard by, 
and flew over the wooden horse, and hung on to flying ropes, and 
dangled upside-down between parallel bars, and shot themselves off 
wooden platforms, — splashes, sparks, coruscations, showers of sol- 
diers. At every corner of the town-wall, every guard-house, every 
gateway, every sentry-box, every drawbridge, every reedy ditch, and 
rushy dike, soldiers, soldiers, soldiers. And the town being pretty 
well all wall, guard-house, gateway, sentry-box, drawbridge, reedy 
ditch, and rushy dike, the town was pretty well all soldiers. 

What would the sleepy old town have been without the soldiers, 
seeing that even with them it had so overslept itself as to have slept 
its echoes hoarse, its defensive bars and locks and bolts and chains 
all rusty, and its ditches stagnant ! From the days when Vauban 
engineered it to that perplexing extent that to look at it was like being 
knocked on the head with it, the stranger becoming stunned and ster- 
torous under the shock of its incomprehensibility, — from the days 
when Vauban made it the express incorporation of every sub- 
stantive and adjective in the art of military engineering, and not only 
twisted you into it and twisted you out of it, to the right, to the 
left, opposite, under here, over there, in the dark, in the dirt, by 
the gateway, archway, covered way, dry way, wet way, fosse, port- 
cullis, drawbridge, sluice, squat tower, pierced wall, and heavy 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 337 

battery, but likewise took a fortifying dive under the neighbouring 
country, and came to the surface three or four miles off, blowing 
out incomprehensible mounds and batteries among the quiet crops 
of chicory and beet-root, — from those days to these the town had 
been asleep, and dust and rust and must had settled on its drowsy 
Arsenals and Magazines, and grass had grown up in its silent 
streets. 

On market-days alone, its Great Place suddenly leaped out of 
bed. On market-days, some friendly enchanter struck his staff 
upon the stones of the Great Place, and instantly arose the liveli- 
est booths and stalls, and sittings and standings, and a pleasant 
hum of chaffering and huckstering from many hundreds of tongues, 
and a pleasant, though peculiar, blending of colours, — white caps, 
blue blouses, and green vegetables, — and at last the Knight 
destined for the adventure seemed to have come in earnest, and all 
the Vaubanois sprang up awake. And now, by long, low-lying 
avenues of trees, jolting in white-hooded donkey-cart, and on donkey- 
back, and in tumbril and waggon, and cart and cabriolet, and afoot 
with barrow and burden, — and along the dikes and ditches and canals, 
in little peak-prowed country boats, — came peasant-men and women 
in flocks and crowds, bringing articles for sale. And here you had 
boots and shoes, and sweetmeats and stuffs to wear, and here (in 
the cool shade of the Town-hall) you had milk and cream and but- 
ter and cheese, and here you had fruits and onions and carrots, and 
all things needful for your soup, and here you had poultry and 
flowers and protesting pigs, and here new shovels, axes, spades, 
and bill-hooks for your farming work, and here huge mounds of 
bread, and here your unground grain in sacks, and here your chil- 
dren's dolls, and here the cake-seller, announcing his wares by beat 
and roll of drum. And hark ! fanfaronade of trumpets, and here 
into the Great Place, resplendent in an open carriage, with four 
gorgeously-attired servitors up behind, playing horns, drums, and 
cymbals, rolled " the Daughter of a Physician " in massive golden 
chains and ear-rings, and blue-feathered hat, shaded from the ad- 
miring sun by two immense umbrellas of artificial roses, to dispense 
(from motives of philanthropy) that small and pleasant dose which 
had cured so many thousands ! Toothache, earache, headache, heart- 
ache, stomachache, debility, nervousness, fits, fainting, fever, ague, 
all equally cured by the small and pleasant dose of the great Physi- 
cian's great daughter ! The process was this, — she, the Daughter 
of a Physician, proprietress of the superb equipage you now ad- 
mired with its confirmatory blasts of trumpet, drum, and cymbal, 
told you so : On the first day after taking the small and pleasant 
dose, you would feel no particular influence beyond a most harmo- 



338 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

iiious sensation of indescribable and irresistible joy ; on the second 
day you would be so astonishingly better that you would think 
yourself changed into somebody else ; on the third day you would 
be entirely free from your disorder, whatever its nature and how- 
ever long you had had it, and would seek out the Physician's 
Daughter to throw yourself at her feet, kiss the hem of her gar- 
ment, and buy as many more of the small and pleasant doses as by 
the sale of all your few eftects you could obtain ; but she would be 
inaccessible, — gone for herbs to the Pyramids of Egypt, — and 
you would be (though cured) reduced to despair ! Thus would the 
Physician's Daughter drive her trade (and briskly too), and thus 
would the buying and selling and mingling of tongues and colours 
continue, until the changing sunlight, leaving the Physician's 
Daughter in the shadow of liigh roofs, admonished her to jolt out 
westward, with a departing effect of gleam and glitter on the splen- 
did equipage and brazen blast. And now the enchanter struck his 
staff upon the stones of the Great Place once more, and down went 
the booths, the sittings and standings, and vanished the merchan- 
dise, and with it the barrows, donkeys, donkey-carts, and tumbrils, and 
all other things on wheels and feet, except the slow scavengers with 
unwieldy carts and meagre horses clearing up the rubbish, assisted 
by the sleek town pigeons, better plumped out than on non-market- 
days. While there was yet an hour or two to wane before the 
autumn sunset, the loiterer outside town-gate and drawbridge, and 
postern and double-ditch, would see the last white-hooded cart 
lessening in the avenue of lengthening shadows of trees, or the last 
country boat, paddled by the last market-woman on her way home, 
showing black upon the reddening, long, low, narrow dike between 
him and the mill; and as the paddle-parted scum and weed closed 
over the boat's track, he might be comfortably sure that its sluggish 
rest would be troubled no more until next market-day. 

As it was not one of the Great Place's days for getting out of 
bed, when Mr. The Englishman looked down at the young soldiers 
practising the goose-step there, his mind was left at liberty to take 
a military turn. 

" These fellows are billeted everywhere about," said he; "and 
to see them lighting the people's fires, boiling the people's pots, 
minding the people's babies, rocking the people's cradles, washing 
the people's greens, and making themselves generally useful, in 
every sort of unmilitary way, is most ridiculous ! Never saw such 
a set of fellows, — never did in my life ! " 

All perfectly true again. Was there not Private Valentine in 
that very house, acting as sole housemaid, valet, cook, steward, and 
nurse, in the family of his captain. Monsieur le Capita ine de la 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 339 

Cour, — cleaning the floors, making the beds, doing the marketing, 
dressing the captain, dressing the dinners, dressing the salads, and 
dressing the baby, all with equal readiness ? Or, to put him aside, 
he being in loyal attendance on his Chief, was there not Private 
Hyppohte, billeted at the Perfumer's two hundred yards off", who, 
when not on duty, volunteered to keep shop while the fair Perfum- 
eress stepped out to speak to a neighbour or so, and laughingly 
sold soap with his war-sword girded on him ? Was there not 
Emile, billeted at the Clock-maker's, perpetually turning to of an 
evening, with his coat off, winding up the stock ? Was there not 
Eugene, billeted at the Tinman's, cultivating, pipe in mouth, a 
garden four feet square, for the Tinman, in the little court, behind 
the shop, and extorting the fruits of the earth from the same, on 
his knees, with the sweat of his brow ? Not to multiply examples, 
was there not Baptiste, billeted on the poor Water-carrier, at that 
very instant sitting on the pavement in the sunlight, with his 
martial legs asunder, and one of the Water-carrier's spare pails 
between them, which (to the delight and glory of the heart of the 
Water-carrier coming across the Place from the fountain, yoked 
and burdened) he was painting bright-green outside and bright-red 
within ? Or, to go no farther than the Barber's at the very next 
door, was there not Corporal Thdophile — 

"No," said Mr. The Englishman, glancing down at the Barber's, 
"he is not there at present. There's the child, though." 

A mere mite of a girl stood on the steps of the Barber's shop, 
looking across the Place. A mere baby, one might call her, dressed 
in the close white linen cap which small French country children 
wear (like the children in Dutch pictures), and in a frock of home- 
spun blue, that had no shape except where it was tied round her 
little fat throat. So that, being naturally short and round all 
over, she looked, behind, as if she had been cut off at her natural 
waist, and had had her head neatly fitted on it. 

"There's the child, though." 

To judge from the way in which the dimpled hand was rubbing 
the eyes, the eyes had been closed in a nap, and were newly opened. 
But they seemed to be looking so intently across the Place, that 
the Englishman looked in the same direction. 

" ! " said he presently. "I thought as much. The Corporal's 
there." 

The Corporal, a smart figure of a man of thirty, perhaps a 
thought under the middle size, but very neatly made, — a sun- 
burnt Corporal with a brown peaked beard, — faced about at the 
moment, addressing voluble words of instruction to the squad in 
hand. Nothing was amiss or awry about the Corporal. A lithe 



340 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

and nimble Corporal, quite complete, from the sparkling dark eyes 
under his knowing uniform cap to his sparkling white gaiters. The 
very image and presentment of a Corj^oral of his country's army, 
in the line of his shoulders, the line of his waist, the broadest line 
of his Bloomer trousers, and their narrowest line at the calf of his 
leg. 

Mr. The Englishman looked on, and the child looked on, and 
the Corporal looked on (but the last-named at his men), until the 
drill ended a few minutes afterwards, and the military sprinkling 
dried up directly, and was gone. Then said Mr. The Englishman 
to himself, " Look here ! By George ! " And the Corporal, danc- 
ing towards the Barber's with his arms wide open, caught up the 
child, held her over his head in a flying attitude, caught her down 
again, kissed her, and made off with her into the Barber's house. 

Now Mr. The Englishman had had a quarrel with his erring 
and disobedient and disowned daughter, and there was a child in 
that case too. Had not his daughter been a child, and had she 
not taken angel-flights above his head as this child had flown 
above the Corporal's? 

"He's a" — National Participled —" fool !" said the English- 
man, and shut his window. 

But the windows of the house of Memory, and the windows of 
the house of Mercy, are not so easily closed as windows of glass 
and wood. They fly open unexpectedly ; they rattle in the night ; 
they must be nailed up. Mr. The Englishman had tried nailing 
them, but had not driven the nails quite home. So he passed but 
a disturbed evening and a worse night. 

By nature a good-tempered man ? No ; very little gentleness, 
confounding the quality with weakness. Fierce and wrathful when 
crossed? Very, and stupendously unreasonable. Moody? Ex- 
ceedingly so. Vindictive ? Well ; he had had scowling thoughts 
that he would formally curse his daughter, as he had seen it done 
on the stage. But remembering that the real Heaven is some 
paces removed from the mock one in the great chandelier of the 
Theatre, he had given that up. 

And he had come abroad to be rid of his repudiated daughter 
for the rest of his life. And here he was. 

At bottom, it was for this reason, more than for any other, that 
Mr. The Englishman took it extremely ill that Coi-poral Thdophile 
should be so devoted to little Bebelle, the child at the Barber's 
shop. In an unlucky moment he had chanced to say to himself, 
" Why, confound the fellow, he is not her father ! " There was 
a sharp sting in the speech which ran into him suddenly, and put 
him in a worse mood. So he had National Participled the uncon- 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 341 

scions Corporal with most hearty emphasis, and had made up his 
mind to think no more about such a mountebank. 

But it came to pass that the Corporal was not to be dismissed. 
If he had known the most delicate fibres of the EngHshman's 
mind, instead of knowing nothing on earth about him, and if he 
had been tlie most obstinate Corporal in the Grand Army of 
France, instead of being the most obliging, he could not have 
planted himself with more determined immovability plump in the 
midst of all the Englishman's thoughts. Not only so, but he 
seemed to be always in his view. Mr. The Englishman had but 
to look out of window, to look upon the Corporal wdth little 
Bebelle. He had but to go for a walk, and there was the Corporal 
walking with Bebelle. He had but to come home again, disgusted, 
and the Corporal and Bebelle w^ere at home before him. If he 
looked out at his back windows early in the morning, the Corporal 
was in the Barber's backyard, washing and dressing and brushing 
Bebelle. If he took refuge at his front windows, the Corporal 
brought his breakfast out into the Place, and shared it there with 
Bebelle. Always Corporal and always Bebelle. Never Corporal 
without Bebelle. Never Bebelle without Corporal. 

Mr. The Englishman was not particularly strong in the French lan- 
guage as a means of oral communication, though he read it very well. 
It is with languages as with people, — when you only know them by 
sight, you are apt to mistake them ; you must be on speaking terms 
before you can be said to have established an acquaintance. 

For this reason, Mr. The Englishman had to gird up his loins 
considerably before he could bring himself to the point of exchang- 
ing ideas with Madame Bouclet on the subject of this Corporal 
and this Bebelle. But Madame Bouclet looking in apologetically 
one morning to remark, that, Heaven ! she was in a state of 
desolation because the lamp-maker had not sent home that lamp 
confided to him to repair, but that truly he was a lamp-maker 
against whom the whole world shrieked out, Mr. The Englishman, 
seized the occasion. ' 

" Madame, that baby — " 

" Pardon, monsieur. That lamp." 

" No, no, that little girl." 

" But, pardon ! " said Madame Bouclet, angling for a clew, " one 
cannot light a little girl, or send her to be repaired 1 " 

"The little girl — at the house of the Barber." 

" Ah-h-h ! " cried Madame Bouclet, suddenly catching the idea 
with her delicate little line and rod. "Little Bebelle'? Yes, yes, 
yes! And her friend the Corporal? Yes, yes, yes, yes! So 
genteel of him, — is it not ? " 



342 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

"He is not — ?" 

" Not at all; not at all ! He is not one of her relations. Not 
at all ! " 

"Why, then, he — " 

" Perfectly ! " cried Madame Bouclet, " you are right, monsieur. 
It is so genteel of him. The less relation, the more genteel. As 
you say." 

"Is she — ?" 

"The child of the Barber? " Madame Bouclet whisked up her 
skilful little line and rod again. " Not at all, not at all ! She is 
the child of — in a word, of no one." 

" The wife of the Barber, then — ? " 

" Indubitably. As you say. The wife of the Barber receives a 
small stipend to take care of her. So much by the month. Eh, 
then ! It is without doubt very little, for we are all poor here." 

" You are not poor, madame." 

" As to my lodgers," replied Madame Bouclet, with a smiling and 
a gracious bend of her head, "no. As to all things else, so-so." 

"You flatter me, madame." 

" Monsieur, it is you who flatter me in living here." 

Certain fishy gasps on Mr. The Englishman's part, denoting that 
he was about to resume his subject under difficulties, Madame 
Bouclet observed him closely, and whisked up her delicate line and 
rod again with triumphant success. 

"0 no, monsieur, certainly not. The wife of the Barber is not 
cruel to the poor child, but she is careless. Her health is delicate, 
and she sits all day, looking out at window. Consequently, when 
the Corporal first came, the poor little Bebelle was much neglected." 

"It is a curious — " began Mr. The Englishman. 

"Name? That Bebelle? Again you are right, monsieur. But 
it is a playful name for Gabrielle." 

" And so the child is a mere fancy of the Corporal's ? " said Mr. 
The Englishman, in a grufily disparaging tone of voice. 

" Eh, well ! " returned Madame Bouclet, with a pleading shrug : 
"one must love something. Human nature is weak." 

("Devilish weak," muttered the Englishman, in his own lan- 
guage.) 

"And the Corporal," pursued Madame Bouclet, "being billeted 
at the Barber's, — where he will probably remain a long time, for he 
is attached to the General, — and finding the poor unowned child 
in need of being loved, and finding himself in need of loving, — ■ 
why, there you have it all, you see ! " 

Mr. The Englishman accepted this interpretation of the matter 
with an indijfferent grace, and observed to himself, in an injured 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 343 

manner, when he was again alone : "I shouldn't mind it so much, 
if these people were not such a " — National Participled — " senti- 
mental people ! " 

There was a Cemetery outside the town, and it happened ill for 
the reputation of the Vaubanois, in this sentimental connection, 
that he took a walk there that same afternoon. To be sure there 
were some wonderful things in it (from the Englishman's point of 
view), and of a certainty in all Britain you would have found noth- 
ing like it. Not to mention the fanciful flourishes of hearts and 
crosses in wood and iron, that were planted all over the place, mak- 
ing it look very like a Firework-ground, where a most splendid 
pyrotechnic display might be expected after dark, there were so 
many wreaths upon the graves, embroidered, as it might be, " To 
my mother," " To my daughter," " To my father," " To my brother," 
" To my sister," " To my friend," and those many wreaths were in 
so many stages of elaboration and decay, from the wreath of yester- 
day, all fresh colour and bright beads, to the wreath of last year, a 
poor mouldering wisp of straw ! There were so many little gardens 
and grottos made upon graves, in so many tastes, with plants and 
shells and plaster figures and porcelain pitchers, and so many odds 
and ends ! There were so many tributes of remembrance hanging 
up, not to be discriminated by the closest inspection from little 
round waiters, whereon were depicted in glowing hues either a lady 
or a gentleman with a white pocket-handkerchief out of all propor- 
tion, leaning, in a state of the most faultless mourning and most 
profound affliction, on the most architectural and gorgeous urn ! 
There were so many surviving wives who had put their names on the 
tombs of their deceased husbands, with a blank for the date of their 
own departure from this weary world ; and there were so many sur- 
viving husbands who had rendered the same homage to their de- 
ceased wives ; and out of the number there must have been so many 
who had long ago married again ! In fine, there was so much in the 
place that would have seemed mere frippery to a stranger, save for 
the consideration that the lightest paper flower that lay upon the 
poorest heap of earth was never touched by a rude hand, but per- 
ished there, a sacred thing ! 

" Nothing of the solemnity of Death here," Mr. The Englishman 
had been going to say, when this last consideration touched him 
with a mild appeal, and on the whole he walked out without saying 
it. "But these people are," he insisted, by way of compensation, 
when he was well outside the gate, " they are so " — Participled — 
" sentimental ! " 

His way back lay by the military gymnasium-ground. And 
there he passed the Corporal glibly instructing young soldiers how 



344 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

to swing themselves over rapid and deep watercourses on their way 
to Glory, by means of a rope, and himself deftly plunging off a 
platform, and flying a hundred feet or two, as an encouragement to 
them to begin. And there he also passed, perched on a crowning 
eminence (probably by the Corporal's careful hands), the small 
Bebelle, with her round eyes wide open, surveying the proceeding 
like a wondering sort of blue and white bird. 

"If that child was to die," this was his reflection as he turned 
his back and went his way, — "and it would almost serve the 
fellow right for making such a fool of himself, — I suppose we 
should have him sticking up a wreath and a waiter in that fantastic 
burying-ground." 

Nevertheless, after another early morning or two of looking out 
of window, he strolled down into the Place, when the Corporal and 
Bebelle were walking there, and touching his hat to the Corporal 
(an immense achievement), wished him Good day. 

"Good day, monsieur." 

"This is a rather pretty child you have here," said Mr. The 
Englishman, taking her chin in his hand, and looking down into her 
astonished blue eyes. 

"Monsieur, she is a very pretty child," returned the Corporal, 
with a stress on his polite correction of the phrase. 

" And good 1 " said the Englishman. 

" And very good. Poor little thing ! " 

" Hah ! " The Englishman stooped down and patted her cheek, 
not without awkwardness, as if he w'ere going too far in his con- 
ciliation. " And what is this medal round your neck, my little one 1 " 

Bebelle having no other reply on her lips than her chubby right 
fist, the Corporal offered his services as interpreter. 

" Monsieur demands, what is this, Bebelle 1 " 

" It is the Holy Virgin," said Bebelle. 

"And who gave it you?" asked the Englishman. 

" Thdophile." 

"And whoisTheophile?" 

Bebelle broke into a laugh, laughed merrily and heartily, clapped 
her chubby hands, and beat her little feet on the stone pavement of 
the Place. 

" He doesn't know Thdophile ! Why, he doesn't know any one ! 
He doesn't know anything ! " Then, sensible of a small solecism in 
her manners, Bebelle twisted her right hand in a leg of the Cor- 
poral's Bloomer trousers, and, laying her cheek against the place, 
Idssed it. 

" Monsieur Thdophile, I believe ? " said the Englishman to the 
Corporal. 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 345 

" It is I, monsieur." 

"Permit me." Mr. The Englishman shook him heartily by the 
hand and turned away. But he took it mighty ill that old Mon- 
sieur Mutuel in his jDatch of sunlight, upon whom he came as he 
turned, should pull oif his cap to him with a Ic^k of pleased ap- 
proval. And he muttered, in his own tongue, as he returned the 
salutation, "Well, walnut-shell ! And what business is it of yours, ? " 

Mr. The Englishman went on for many weeks passing but dis- 
turbed evenings and worse nights, and constantly experiencing that 
those aforesaid windows in the houses of Memory and Mercy rattled 
after dark, and that he had very imperfectly nailed them up. Like- 
wise, he went on for many weeks daily improving the acquaintance 
of the Corporal and Bebelle. That is to say, he took Bebelle by 
the chin, and the Corporal by the hand, and offered Bebelle sous 
and the Corporal cigars, and even got the length of changing pipes 
with the Corporal and kissing Bebelle. But he did it all in a 
shamefaced way, and always took it extremely ill that Monsieur 
Mutuel in his patch of sunlight should note what he did. When- 
ever that seemed to be the case, he always growled in his own 
tongue, " There you are again, walnut-shell ! What business is it 
of yours ? " 

In a word, it had become the occupation of Mr. The English- 
man's life to look after the Corporal and little Bebelle, and to 
resent old Monsieur Mutuel's looking after hi7?i. An occupation 
only varied by a fire in the town one windy night, and much passing 
of water-buckets from hand to hand (in which the Englishman 
rendered good service), and much beating of drums, — when all of a 
sudden the Corporal disappeared. 

Next, all of a sudden, Bebelle disappeared. 

She had been visible a few days later than the Corporal, — sadly 
deteriorated as to washing and brushing, — but she had not spoken 
when addressed by Mr. The Englishman, and had looked scared 
and had run away. And now it would seem that she had run 
away for good. And there lay the Great Place under the windows, 
bare and barren. 

In liis shamefaced and constrained way, Mr. The Englishman 
asked no question of any one, but watched from his front windows 
and watched from his back windows, and lingered about the Place, 
and peeped in at the Barber's shop, and did all this and much more 
with a whistling and tune-humming pretence of not missing anything, 
until one afternoon when Monsieur Mutuel's patch of sunlight was in 
shadow, and when, according to all rule and precedent, he had no right 
whatever to bring his red ribbon out of doors, behold here he was, 
advancing with his cap already in his hand twelve paces off ! 



346 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

Mr. The Englishman had got as far into his usual objurgation 
as, " What bu — si — " when he checked himself. 

"Ah, it is sad, it is sad! Hdlas, it is unhappy, it is sad!" 
Thus old Monsieur Mutuel, shaking his grey head. 

" What busin-y-at least, I would say, what do you mean, Mon- 
sieur Mutuel ? " 

" Our Corporal. Helas, our dear Corporal ! " 

" What has happened to him ? " 

" You have not heard ? " 

"No." 

" At the fire. But he was so brave, so ready. Ah, too brave, 
too ready ! " 

" May the Devil carry you away ! " the Englishman broke in 
impatiently; "I beg your pardon, — I mean me, — I am not ac- 
customed to speak French, — go on, will you ? " 

" And a falling beam — " 

" Good God ! " exclaimed the Englishman. " It was a private 
soldier who was killed ? " 

" No. A Corporal, the same Corporal, our dear Corporal. Be- 
loved by all his comrades. The funeral ceremony was touching, — 
penetrating. Monsieur The Englishman, your eyes fill with tears." 

" What bu— si— " 

" Monsieur The Englishman, I honour those emotions. I salute 
you with profound respect. I will not obtrude myself upon your 
noble heart." 

Monsieur Mutuel, — a gentleman in every thread of his cloudy 
linen, under whose wrinkled hand every grain in the quarter of an 
ounce of poor snuff in his poor little tin box became a gentle- 
man's property, — Monsieur Mutuel passed on, with his cap in his 
hand. 

"I little thought," said the Englishman, after walking for 
several minutes, and more than once blowing his nose, " when I 
was looking round that cemetery — I'll go there ! " 

Straight he went there, and when he came within the gate he 
paused, considering whether he should ask at the lodge for some 
direction to the grave. But he was less than ever in a mood for 
asking questions, and he thought, "I shall see something on it 
to know it by." 

In search of the Corporal's grave he went softly on, up this walk 
and down that, peering in, among the crosses and hearts and 
columns and obelisks and tombstones, for a recently disturbed spot. 
It troubled him now to think how many dead there were in the ceme- 
tery, — he had not thought them a tenth part so numerous before, 
— and after he had walked and sought for some time, he said to 



1 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 347 

himself, as he struck down a new vista of tombs, " I might suppose 
that every one was dead but I." 

Not every one. A live child was lying on the ground asleep. 
Truly he had found something on the Corporal's grave to know it 
by, and the something was Bebelle. 

"With sucli a loving will had the dead soldier's comrades worked 
at his resting-place, that it was already a neat garden. On the 
green turf of the garden Bebelle lay sleeping, with her cheek touch- 
ing it. A plain, unpainted little wooden Cross was planted in the 
turf, and her short arm embraced this little Cross, as it had many 
a time embraced the Corporal's neck. They ha'd put a tiny flag 
(the flag of France) at his head, and a laurel garland. 

Mr. The Englishman took off his hat, and stood for a while 
silent. Then, covering his head again, he bent down on one knee, 
and softly roused the child. 

" Bebelle ! My little one ! " 

Opening her eyes, on which the tears were still wet, Bebelle was 
at first frightened ; but seeing who it was, she suffered him to take 
her in his arms, looking steadfastly at him. 

" You must not lie here, my little one. You must come with me." 

"No, no. I can't leave Th^ophile. I want the good dear 
Thdophile." 

" We will go and seek him, Bebelle. We will go and look for 
him in England. We will go and look for him at my daughter's, 
Bebelle." 

" Shall we find him there?" 

"We shall find the best part of him there. Come with me, 
poor forlorn little one. Heaven is my witness," said the English- 
man, in a low voice, as, before he rose, he touched the turf above 
the gentle Corporal's breast, "that I thankfully accept this trust! " 

It was a long way for the child to have come unaided. She was 
soon asleep again, with her embrace transferred to the Englishman's 
neck. He looked at her worn shoes, and her galled feet, and her 
tired face, and believed that she had come there eveiy day. 

He was leaving the grave with the slumbering Bebelle in his 
arms, when he stopped, looked wistfully down at it, and looked 
wistfully at the other graves around. " It is the innocent custom 
of the people," said Mr. The Englishman, with hesitation. " I 
think I should like to do it. No one sees." 

Careful not to wake Bebelle as he went, he repaired to the lodge 
where such little tokens of remembrance were sold, and bought two 
wreaths. One, blue and white and glistening silver, "To my 
friend;" one of a soberer red and black and yellow, "To my 
friend." With these he went back to the grave, and so down on 



348 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

one knee again. Touching the child's lips with the brighter 
wreath, he guided her hand to hang it on the Cross ; then hung 
his own wreath there. After all, the wreaths were not far out of 
keeping with the little garden. To my friend. To my friend. 

Mr. The Englishman took it very ill when he looked round a 
street corner into the Great Place, carrying Bebelle in his arms, 
that old Mutuel should be there airing his red ribbon. He took a 
world of pains to dodge the worthy Mutuel, and devoted a surpris- 
ing amount of time and trouble to skulking into his own lodging 
like a man pursued by Justice. Safely arrived there at last, he 
made Bebelle's toilet with as accurate a remembrance as he could 
bring to bear upon that work of the way in which he had often 
seen the poor Corporal make it, and liaving given her to eat and 
drink, laid her down on his own bed. Then he slipped out into 
the Barber's shop, and after a brief interview mth the Barber's wife, 
and a brief recourse to his purse and card-case, came back again 
with the whole of Bebelle's personal property in such a very little 
bundle that it was quite lost under his arm. 

As it was irreconcilable with his whole course and character that 
he should carry Bebelle off in state, or receive any compliments or 
congratulations on that feat, he devoted the next day to getting his 
two portmanteaus out of the house by artfulness and stealth, and 
to comporting himself in every particular as if he were going to run 
away, — except, indeed, that he paid his few debts in the town, 
and prepared a letter to leave for Madame Bouclet, enclosing a 
suflScient sum of money in lieu of notice. A railway train would 
come through at midnight, and by that train he would take away 
Bebelle to look for Thdophile in England and at his forgiven 
daughter's. 

At midnight, on a moonlight night, Mr. The Englishman came 
creeping forth like a harmless assassin, with Bebelle on his breast 
instead of a dagger. Quiet the Great Place, and quiet the never- 
stirring streets ; closed the cafds ; huddled together motionless their 
billiard-balls ; drowsy the guard or sentinel on duty here and there ; 
lulled for the time, by sleep, even the insatiate appetite of the 
Office of Town-dues. 

Mr. The Englishman left the Place behind, and left the streets 
behind, and left the civilian-inhabited town behind, and descended 
down among the military works of Vauban, hemming all in. As 
the shadow of the first heavy arch and postern fell upon him and 
was left behind, as the shadow of the second heavy arch and pos- 
tern fell upon him and was left behind, as his hollow tramp over 
the first drawbridge was succeeded by a gentler sound, as his hollow 
tramp over the second drawbridge was succeeded by a gentler 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 349 

sound, as he overcame the stagnant ditches one by one, and passed 
out where the flowing waters were and where the moonlight, so the 
dark shades and the hollow sounds and the unwholesomely locked 
currents of his soul were vanquished and set free. See to it, Vau- 
bans of your own hearts, who gird them in with triple walls and 
ditches, and with bolt and chain and bar and lifted bridge, — raze 
those fortifications, and lay them level with the all-absorbing dust, 
before the night cometh when no hand can work ! 

All went prosperously, and he got into an empty carriage in the 
train, where he could lay Bebelle on the seat over against him, as 
on a couch, and cover her from head to foot witfer his mantle. He 
had just drawn himself up from perfecting this arrangement, and 
had just leaned back in his own seat contemplating it with great 
satisfaction, when he became aware of a curious appearance at the 
open carriage window, — a ghostly little tin box floating up in the 
moonlight, and hovering there. 

He leaned forward, and put out his head. Down among the 
rails and wheels and ashes, Monsieur Mutuel, red ribbon and all ! 

"Excuse me. Monsieur The Englishman," said Monsieur Mutuel, 
holding up his box at arm's length, the carriage being so high and 
he so low; "but I shall reverence the little box for ever, if your 
so generous hand will take a pinch from it at parting." 

Mr. The Englishman reached out of the window before comply- 
ing, and — without asking the old fellow what business it was of 
his — shook hands and said, " Adieu ! God bless you ! " 

"And, Mr. The Englishman, God bless you!'' cried Madame 
Bouclet, who was also there among the rails and wheels and ashes. 
" And God will bless you in the happiness of the protected child 
now with you. And God will bless you in your own child at home. 
And God will bless you in your own remembrances. And this 
from me ! " 

He had barely time to catch a bouquet from her hand, when 
the train was flying through the night. Round the paper that 
enfolded it was bravely written (doubtless by the nephew who held 
the pen of an Angel), " Homage to the friend of the friendless." 

" Not bad people, Bebelle ! " said Mr. The Englishman, softly 
drawing the mantle a little from her sleeping face, that he might 
kiss it, "though they are so — " 

Too " sentimental " himself at the moment to be able to get out 
that word, he added nothing but a sob, and travelled for some 
miles, through the moonlight, with his hand before his eyes. 



360 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

Chapter III. 

HIS BROWN-PAPEE PARCEL. 

My works are well known. I am a young man in the Art line. 
You have seen my works many a time, though it's fifty thousand 
to one if you have seen me. You say you don't want to see me ? 
You say your interest is in my works, and not in me 1 Don't be 
too sure about that. Stop a bit. 

Let us have it down in black and white at the first go off", so 
that there may be no unpleasantness or wrangling afterwards. And 
this is looked over by a friend of mine, a ticket writer, that is up to 
literature. I am a young man in the Art line — in the Fine- Art 
line. You have seen my works over and over again, and you have 
been curious about me, and you think you have seen me. Now, 
as a safe rule, you never have seen me, and you never do see me, 
and you never will see me. I think that's plainly put — and it's 
what knocks me over. 

If there's a blighted public character going, I am the party. 

It has been remarked by a certain (or an uncertain) philosopher, 
that the world knows nothing of its greatest men. He might have 
put it plainer if he had thrown his eye in my direction. He might 
have put it, that while the world knows something of them that 
apparently go in and win, it knows nothing of them that really go 
in and don't win. There it is again in another form — and that's 
what knocks me over. 

Not that it's only myself that suffers from injustice, but that I 
am more alive to my own injuries than to any other man's. Being, 
as I have mentioned, in the Fine- Art line, and not the Philanthropic 
line, I openly admit it. As to company in injury, I have company 
enough. Who are you passing every day at your Competitive 
Excruciations 1 The fortunate candidates whose heads and livers 
you have turned upside down for life 1 Not you. You are really 
passing the Crammers and Coaches. If your principle is right, 
why don't you turn out to-morrow morning with the keys of your 
cities on velvet cushions, your musicians playing, and your flags 
flying, and read addresses to the Crammers and Coaches on your 
bended knees, beseeching them to come out and govern you? 
Then, again, as to your public business of all sorts, your Financial 
statements and your Budgets ; the Public knows much, truly, about 
the real doers of all that ! Your Nobles and Right Honourables 
are first-rate men ? Yes, and so is a goose a first-rate bird. But 
I'll tell you this about the goose ; — you'll find his natural flavour 
disappointing, without stufiing. 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 351 

Perhaps I am soured by not being popular ? But suppose I am 
popular. Suppose my works never fail to attract. Suppose that, 
whether they are exhibited by natural light or by artificial, they 
invariably draw the public. Then no doubt they are preserved in 
some Collection ? No, they are not ; they are not preserved in any 
Collection. Copyright? No, nor yet copyright. Anyhow they 
nmst be somewhere ? Wrong again, for they are often nowhere. 

Says you, " At all events, you are in a moody state of mind, my 
friend." My answer is, I have described myself as a public char- 
acter with a blight upon him — which fully accounts for the cur- 
dling of the milk in that cocoa-nut. 

Those that are acquainted with London are aware of a locality 
on tlie Surrey side of the river Thames, called the Obelisk, or, 
more generally, the Obstacle. Those that are not acquainted with 
London will also be aware of it, now that I have named it. My 
lodging is not far from that locality. I am a young man of that 
easy disposition, that I lie abed till it's absolutely necessary to get 
up and earn something, and then I lie abed again till I have spent 
it. 

It was on an occasion when I had had to turn to with a view to 
victuals, that I found myself walking along the Waterloo Road, 
one evening after dark, accompanied by an acquaintance and fellow- 
lodger in the gas-fitting way of life. He is very good company, 
having worked at the theatres, and, indeed, he has a theatrical 
turn himself, and wishes to be brought out in the character of 
Othello ; but whether on account of his regular work always black- 
ing his face and hands more or less, I cannot say. 

" Tom," he says, " what a mystery hangs over you ! " 

"Yes, Mr. Click" — the rest of the house generally give him 
his name, as being first, front, carpeted all over, his own furniture, 
and if not mahogany, an out-and-out imitation — "yes, Mr. Click, 
a mystery does hang over me." 

"Makes you low, you see, don't it?" says he, eyeing me side- 
ways. 

"Why, yes, Mr. Click, there are circumstances connected with 
it that have," I yielded to a sigh, " a lowering effect." 

" Gives you a touch of the misanthrope too, don't it 1 " says he. 
"Well, I'll tell you what. If I was you, I'd shake it off"." 

"If I was you, I would, Mr. Click; but, if you was me, you 
wouldn't." 

" Ah ! " says he, " there's something in that." 

When we had walked a little further, he took it up again by 
touching me on the chest. 

" You see, Tom, it seems to me as if, in the words of the poet 



352 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

who wrote the domestic drama of The Stranger, you had a silent 
sorrow there," 

"I have, Mr. Click." 

" I hope, Tom," lowering his voice in a friendly way, " it isn't 
coining, or smashing 1 " 

" No, Mr. Click. Don't be uneasy." 

" Nor yet forg " Mr. Click checked himself, and added, 

" counterfeiting anything, for instance?" 

" No, Mr. Click. I am lawfully in the Art line — Fine- Art line 
— but I can say no more." 

" Ah ! Under a species of star? A kind of malignant spell? 
A sort of a gloomy destiny ? A cankerworm pegging away at your 
vitals in secret, as well as I make it out ? " said Mr. Click, eyeing 
me with some admiration. 

I told Mr. Click that was about it, if we came to particulars ; 
and I thought he appeared rather proud of me. 

Our conversation had brought us to a crowd of people, the 
greater part struggling for a front place from which to see some- 
thing on the pavement, which proved to be various designs exe- 
cuted in coloured chalks on the pavement stones, lighted by two 
candles stuck in mud sconces. The subjects consisted of a fine 
fresh salmon's head and shoulders, supposed to have been recently 
sent home from the fishmonger's ; a moonlight night at sea (in a 
circle) ; dead game ; scroll-work ; the head of a hoary hermit en- 
gaged in devout contemplation ; the head of a pointer smoking a 
pipe ; and a cherubim, his flesh creased as in infancy, going on 
a horizontal errand against the wind. All these subjects appeared 
to me to be exquisitely done. 

On his knees on one side of this gallery, a shabby person of 
modest appearance who shivered dreadfully (though it wasn't at 
all cold), was engaged in blowing the chalk-dust off the moon, ton- 
ing the outline of the back of the hermit's head with a bit of 
leather, and fattening the down-stroke of a letter or two in the 
writing. I have forgotten to mention that writing formed a part 
of the composition, and that it also — as it appeared to me — was 
exquisitely done. It ran as follows, in fine round characters: 
"An honest man is the noblest work of God. 12 3 456789 
0. <£ s. d. Employment in an office is humbly requested. Hon- 
our the Queen. Hunger isa0987654321 sharp thorn. 
Chip chop, cherry cliop, fol de rol de ri do. Astronomy and 
mathematics. I do this to support my family." 

Murmurs of admiration at the exceeding beauty of this perform- 
ance went about among the crowd. The artist, having finished 
his touching (and having spoilt those places), took his seat on the 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 353 

pavement, with his knees crouched up very nigh his chin ; and 
halfpence began to rattle in. 

" A pity to see a man of that talent brought so low ; an't it ? " 
said one of the crowd to me. 

" What he might have done in the coach-painting, or house-dec- 
orating ! " said another man, who took up the first speaker because 
I did not. 

" Why, he writes — alone — like the Lord Chancellor ! " said 
another man. 

"Better," said another. "I know his writing. He couldn't 
support his family this way." 

Then, a woman noticed the natural fluffiness of the hermit's 
hair, and another woman, her friend, mentioned of the salmon's 
gills that you could almost see him gasp. Then, an elderly coun- 
try gentleman stepped forward and asked tlie modest man 'how he 
executed his work? And the modest man took some scraps of 
brown paper with colours in 'em out of his pockets, and showed 
them. Then a fair-complexioned donkey, with sandy hair and 
spectacles, asked if the hermit was a portrait? To which the 
modest man, casting a sorrowful glance upon it, replied that it 
was, to a certain extent, a recollection of his father. This caused 
a boy to yelp out, " Is the Pinter a smoking the pipe your mother ? " 
who was immediately shoved out of view by a sympathetic carpenter 
\vith his basket of tools at his back. 

At every fresh question or remark the crowd leaned forward 
more eagerly, and dropped the halfpence more freely, and the 
modest man gathered them up more meekly. At last, another 
elderly gentleman came to the front, and gave the artist his card, 
to come to his office to-morrow, and get some copying to do. The 
card was accompanied by sixpence, and the artist was profoundly 
grateful, and, before he put the card in his hat, read it several 
times by the light of his candles to fix the address well in his 
mind, in case he should lose it. The crowd was deeply interested 
by this last incident, and a man in the second row with a gruff 
voice growled to the artist, "You've got a chance in life now, an't 
you ? " The artist answered (snifiing in a veiy low-spirited way, 
however), "I'm thankful to hope so." Upon which there was a 
general chorus of "Fow are all right," and the halfpence slackened 
very decidedly. 

I felt myself pulled away by the arm, and Mr. Click and I stood 
alone at the corner of the next crossing. 

"Why, Tom," said Mr. Click, "what a horrid expression of face 
you've got ! " 

"Have I?" says I. 

2a 



354 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

"Have you?" says Mr. Click. "Why, you looked as if you 
would have his blood." 

"Whose blood?" 

" The artist's." 

" The artist's ? " I repeated. And I laughed, frantically, wildly, 
gloomily, incoherently, disagreeably. I am sensible that I did. I 
know I did. 

Mr. Click stared at me in a scared sort of a way, but said noth- 
ing until we had walked a street's length. He then stopped short, 
and said, with excitement on the part of his forefinger : 

" Thomas, I find it necessary to be plain with you. I don't like 
the envious man. I have identified the cankerworm that's pegging 
away at your vitals, and it's envy, Thomas." 

" Is it ? " says I. 

"Yes, it is," says he. "Thomas, beware of envy. It is the 
green-eyed monster which never did and never will improve each 
shining hour, but quite the reverse. I dread the envious man, 
Thomas. I confess that I am afraid of the envious man, when he 
is so envious as you are. Whilst you contemplated the works of a 
gifted rival, and whilst you heard that rival's praises, and especially 
whilst you met his humble glance as he put that card away, your 
countenance was so malevolent as to be terrific. Thomas, I have 
heard of the envy of them that follows the Fine- Art line, but I 
never believed it could be what yours is. I wish you well, but I 
take my leave of you. And if you should ever get into trouble 
through knifing — or say, garroting — a brother artist, as I be- 
lieve you will, don't call me to character, Thomas, or I shall be 
forced to injure your case." 

Mr. Click parted from me with those words, and we broke oflF 
our acquaintance. 

I became enamoured. Her name was Henrietta. Contending 
with my easy disposition, I frequently got up to go after her. She 
also dwelt in the neighbourhood of the Obstacle, and I did fondly 
hope that no other would interpose in the way of our union. 

To say that Henrietta was volatile is but to say that she was 
woman. To say that she was in the bonnet-trimming is feebly to 
express the taste which reigned predominant in her own. 

She consented to walk with me. Let me do her the justice to 
say that she did so upon trial. "I am not," said Henrietta, "as 
yet prepared to regard you, Thomas, in any other light than as a 
friend ; but as a friend I am willing to walk with you, on the 
understanding that softer sentiments may flow." 

We walked. 

Under the influence of Henrietta's beguilements, I now got out 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 355 

of bed daily. I pursued my calling with an industry before un- 
known, and it cannot fail to have been observed at that period, by 
those most familiar with the streets of London, that there was a 
larger supply. But hold ! The time is not yet come ! 

One evening in October I was walking with Henrietta, enjoying 
the cool breezes wafted over Vauxhall Bridge. After several slow 
turns, Henrietta gaped frequently (so inseparable from woman is 
the love of excitement), and said, "Let's go home by Grosvenor 
Place, Piccadilly, and Waterloo " — localities, I may state for the 
information of the stranger and the foreigner, well known in London, 
and the last a Bridge. 

"No. Not by Piccadilly, Henrietta," said I. 

"And why not Piccadilly, for goodness' sake?';? said Henrietta. 

Could I tell her ? Could I confess to the gloomy presentiment 
that overshadowed me? Could I make myself intelligible to 
her? No. 

" I don't like Piccadilly, Henrietta." 

" But I do," said she. " It's dark now, and the long rows of lamps 
in Piccadilly after dark are beautiful. I will go to Piccadilly ! " 

Of course we went. It was a pleasant night, and there were 
numbers of people in the streets. It was a brisk night, but not 
too cold, and not damp. Let me darkly observe, it was the best of 
all nights — for the purpose. 

As we passed the garden wall of the Royal Palace, going up 
Grosvenor Place, Henrietta murmured : 

" I wish I was a Queen ! " 

"Why so, Henrietta?" 

" I would make you Something," said she, and crossed her two 
hands on my arm, and turned away her head. 

Judging from this that the softer sentiments alluded to above 
had begun to flow, I adapted my conduct to that belief. Thus 
happily we passed on into the detested thoroughfare of Piccadilly. 
On the right of that thoroughfare is a row of trees, the railing of 
the Green Park, and a fine broad eligible piece of pavement. 

" Oh my ! " cried Henrietta presently. " There's been an acci- 
dent ! " 

I looked to the left, and said, " Where, Henrietta ? " 

"Not there, stupid!" said she. "Over by the Park railings. 
Where the crowd is. Oh no, it's not an accident, it's something 
else to look at ! What's them lights ? " 

She referred to two lights twinkling low amongst the legs of the 
assemblage : two candles on the pavement. 

" Oh, do come along ! " cried Henrietta, skipping across the road 
with me. I hung back, but in vain. " Do let's look ! " 



356 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

Again, designs upon the pavement. Centre compartment, Mount 
Vesuvius going it (in a circle), supported by four oval compart- 
ments, severally representing a ship in heavy weather, a shoulder 
of mutton attended by two cucumbers, a golden harvest with dis- 
tant cottage of proprietor, and a knife and fork after nature ; above 
the centre compartment a bunch of grapes, and over the whole a 
rainbow. The whole, as it appeared to me, exquisitely done. 

The person in attendance on these works of art was in all respects, 
shabbiness excepted, unlike the former personage. His whole ap- 
pearance and manner denoted briskness. Though threadbare, he 
expressed to the crowd that poverty had not subdued his spirit, or 
tinged with any sense of shame this honest effort to turn his talents 
to some account. The writing which formed a part of his composi- 
tion was conceived in a similarly cheerful tone. It breathed the fol- 
lowing sentiments : " The writer is poor, but not despondent. To a 
British 1234567890 Public he £ s. d. appeals. Honour to 
our brave Army ! And also 0987654321 to our gallant Navy. 
Britons Strike the A B C D E F G writer in common chalks ' 
would be grateful for any suitable employment Home ! Hurrah ! " 
The whole of this writing appeared to me to be exquisitely done. 

But this man, in one respect like the last, though seemingly hard 
at it with a great show of brown paper and rubbers, was only 
really fattening the down-stroke of a letter here and there, or blow- 
ing the loose chalk off the rainbow, or toning the outside edge of 
the shoulder of mutton. Though he did this with the greatest 
confidence, he did it (as it struck me) in so ignorant a manner, and 
so spoilt everything he touched, that when he began upon the 
purple smoke from the chimney of the distant cottage of the pro- 
prietor of the golden harvest (which smoke was beautifully soft), 
I found myself sajdng aloud, without considering of it : 

" Let that alone, will you ? " 

" Halloa ! " said the man next me in the crowd, jerking me 
roughly from him with his elbow, " why didn't you send a telegram 1 
If we had known you was coming, we'd have provided something- 
better for you. You understand the man's work better than he 
does himself, don't you 1 Have you made your will ? You're too 
clever to live long." 

"Don't be hard upon the gentlemen, sir," said the person in 
attendance on the works of art, with a twinkle in his eye as he 
looked at me ; "he may chance to be an artist himself. If so, sir, 
he will have a feUow-feeling with me, sir, when I " — he adapted 
his action to his words as he went on, and gave a smart slap of his 
hands between each touch, working himself all the time about and 
about the composition — "when I lighten the bloom of my grapes 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 357 

— shade off the orange in my rainbow — dot the i of my Britons 

— throw a yellow light into my cow-cum-6er — insinuate another 
morsel of fat into my shoulder of mutton — dart another zigzag 
flash of lightning at my ship in distress ! " 

He seemed to do this so neatly, and was so nimble about it, that 
the halfpence came flying in. 

"Thanks, generous public, thanks ! " said the professor. "You 
will stimulate me to further exertions. My name will be found in 
the list of British Painters yet. I shall do better than this, with 
encouragement. I shall indeed." 

" You never can do better than that bunch of grapes," said 
Henrietta. " Oh, Thomas, them grapes ! " 

" Not better than that, lady ? I hope for the time when I shall 
paint anything but your own bright eyes and lips equal to life." 

" (Thomas, did you ever 1) But it must take a long time, sir," 
said Henrietta, blushing, "to paint equal to that." 

" I was prenticed to it, miss," said the young man, smartly touch- 
ing up the composition — " prenticed to it in the caves of Spain and 
Portingale, ever so long and two year over." 

There was a laugh from the crowd ; and a new man who had 
worked himself in next me, said, " He's a smart chap, too; an't he 1 " 

" And what a eye ! " exclaimed Henrietta softly. 

" Ah ! He need have a eye," said the man. 

" Ah ! He just need," was murmured among the crowd. 

"He couldn't come that 'ere burning mountain without a eye," 
said the man. He had got himself accepted as an authority, 
somehow, and everybody looked at his finger as it pointed out 
Vesuvius. " To come that effect in a general illumination would 
require a eye : but to come it with two dips — why, it's enough to 
blind him ! " 

That impostor, pretending not to have heard what was said, now 
winked to any extent with both eyes at once, as if the strain upon 
his sight was too much, and threw back his long hair — it was 
very long — as if to cool his fevered brow. I was watching him 
doing it, when Henrietta suddenly whispered, " Oh, Thomas, how 
horrid you look ! " and pulled me out by the arm. 

Remembering Mr. Click's words, I was confused when I retorted, 
" What do you mean by horrid ? " 

"Oh gracious ! Why, you looked," said Henrietta, " as if you 
would have his blood." 

I was going to answer, " So I would, for twopence from his 

nose," when I checked myself and remained silent. 

We returned home in silence. Every step of the way, the softer 
sentiments that had flowed, ebbed twenty mile an hour. Adapting 



358 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

my conduct to the ebbing, as I had done to the flowing, I let my arm 
drop limp, so as she could scarcely keep hold of it, and I wished 
her such a cold good night at parting, that I keep within the 
bounds of truth when I characterise it as a Rasper. 

In the course of the next day I received the following document : 

" Henrietta informs Thomas that my eyes are open to you. I 
must ever wish you well, but walking and us is separated by an 
unfarmable abyss. One so malignant to superiority — Oh that 
look at him ! — can never never conduct 

" Henrietta 

"P.S. — Tothe altar." 

Yielding to the easiness of my disposition, I went to bed for a 
week, after receiving this letter. During the whole of such time, 
London was bereft of the usual fruits of my labour. When I re- 
sumed it, I found that Henrietta was married to the artist of 
Piccadilly. 

Did I say to the artist 1 What fell words were those, expressive 
of w^hat a galling hoUowness, of what a bitter mockery ! I — I — 
I — am the artist. I was the real artist of Piccadilly, I was 
the real artist of the Waterloo Road, I am the only artist of all 
those pavement-subjects which daily and nightly arouse your admi- 
ration. I do 'em, and I let 'em out. The man you behold with 
the papers of chalks and the rubbers, touching up the down-strokes 
of the writing and shading off the salmon, the man you give the 
credit to, the man you give the money to, hires — yes ! and I 
live to tell it ! — hires those works of art of me, and brings noth- 
ing to 'em but the candles. 

Such is genius in a commercial country. I am not up to the 
shivering, I am not up to the liveliness, I am not up to the want- 
ing-employment-in-an-office move ; I am only up to originating and 
executing the work. In consequence of which you never see me ; 
you think you see me when you see somebody else, and that some- 
else is a mere Commercial character. The one seen by self and 
Mr. Click in the Waterloo Road can only write a single word, and 
that I taught him, and it's Multiplication — which you may see 
him execute upside down, because he can't do it the natural way. 
The one seen by self and Henrietta by the Green Park railings can 
just smear into existence the two ends of a rainbow, with his cuff 
and a rubber — if very hard put upon making a show — but he 
could no more come the arch of the rainbow, to save his life, than 
he could come the moonlight, fish, volcano, shipwi'eck, mutton, 
hermit, or any of my most celebrated effects. 



J 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 359 

To conclude as I began : if there's a blighted public character 
going, I am the party. And often as you have seen, do see, and 
will see, my Works, it's fifty thousand to one if you'll ever see me, 
unless, when the candles are burnt down and the Commercial char- 
acter is gone, you should happen to notice a neglected young man 
perseveringly rubbing out the last traces of the pictures, so that no- 
body can renew the same. That's me. 



Chapter IV. 

HIS WONDERFUL END. " 

It will have been, ere now, perceived that I sold the foregoing 
writings. From the fact of their being printed in these pages, the 
inference will, ere now, have been drawn by the reader (may I add, 
the gentle reader ?) that I sold them to One who never yet — ^ 

Having parted with the writings on most satisfactory terms, — 
for, in opening negotiations with the present Journal, was I not 
placing myself in the hands of One of whom it may be said, in the 
words of Another,^ — I resumed my usual functions. But I too 
soon discovered that peace of mind had fled from a brow which, 
up to that time, Time had merely took the hair off", leaving an 
unrufiied expanse within. 

It were superfluous to veil it, — the brow to which I allude is 
my own. 

Yes, over that brow uneasiness gathered like the sable wing of the 
fabled bird, as — as no doubt will be easily identified by all right- 
minded individuals. If not, I am unable, on the spur of the 
moment, to enter into particulars of him. The reflection that the 
writings must now inevitably get into print, and that He might 
yet live and meet with them, sat like the Hag of Night upon my 
jaded form. The elasticity of my spirits departed. Fruitless was 
the Bottle, whether Wine or Medicine. I had recourse to both, 
and the eflfect of both upon my system was witheringly lowering. 

In this state of depression, into which I subsided when I first 
began to revolve what could I ever say if He — the unknown — 
was to appear in the Coffee-room and demand reparation, I one 
forenoon in this last November received a turn that appeared to 
be given me by the finger of Fate and Conscience, hand in hand. 
I was alone in the Coff'ee-room, and had just poked the fire into 
a blaze, and was standing with my back to it, trying whether heat 
would penetrate with soothing influence to the Voice within, when 

1 The remainder of this complimentaiy sentence editorially struck out. 



360 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

a young man in a cap, of an intelligent countenance, though requir- 
ing his hair cut, stood before me. 

"Mr. Christopher, the Head Waiter?" i 

"The same." \ 

The young man shook his hair out of his vision, — which it 
impeded, — took a packet from his breast, and handing it over to 
me, said, with his eye (or did I dream?) fixed with a lambent 
meaning on me, "The Proofs." 

Although I smelt my coat-tails singeing at the fire, I had not 
the power to withdraw them. The young man put the packet in 
my faltering grasp, and repeated, — let me do him the justice to 
add, with civility : 

" The Proofs. A. Y. R." 

With those words he departed. 

A. Y. R. ? And You Remember. Was that his meaning ? At 
Your Risk. Were the letters short for that reminder 1 Anticipate 
Your Retribution. Did they stand for that warning ? Out-dacious 
Youth Repent ? But no ; for that, a was happily wanting, and 
the vowel here was a A. 

I opened the packet, and found that its contents were the fore- 
going writings printed just as the reader (may I add the discerning 
reader ?) peruses them. In vain was the reassuring whisper, — 
A. Y. R., All the Year Round, — it could not cancel the Proofs. 
Too appropriate name. The Proofs of my having sold the Writings. 

My wretchedness daily increased. I had not thought of the risk 
I ran, and the defying publicity I put my head into, until all was 
done, and all was in print. Give up the money to be ofi" the bar- 
gain and prevent the publication, I could not. My family was 
down in the world, Christmas was coming on, a brother in the hos- 
pital and a sister in the rheumatics could not be entirely neglected. 
And it was not only ins in the family that had told on the resources 
of one unaided Waitering; outs were not wanting. A brother out 
of a situation, and another brother out of money to meet an accept- 
ance, and another brother out of his mind, and another brother out 
at New York (not the same, though it might appear so), had really 
and truly brought me to a stand till I could turn myself round. I 
got worse and worse in my meditations, constantly reflecting " The 
Proofs," and reflecting that when Christmas drew nearer, and the 
Proofs were published, there could be no safety from hour to hour 
but that He might confront me in the Cofi'ee-room, and in the face 
of day and his country demand his rights. 

The impressive and unlooked-for catastrophe towards which I 
dimly pointed the reader (shall I add, the highly intellectual reader?) 
in my first remarks now rapidly approaches. 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 361 

It was November still, but the last echoes of the Guy Foxes 
had long ceased to reverberate. We was slack, — several joints 
under our average mark, and wine, of course, proportionate. So 
slack had we become at last, that Beds Nos. 26, 27, 28, and 31, 
having took their six o'clock dinners, and dozed over their respec- 
tive pints, had drove away in their respective Hansoms for their 
respective Night Mail-trains and left us empty. 

I had took the evening paper to No. 6 table, — which is warm 
and most to be preferred, — and, lost in the all-absorbing topics of 
the day, had dropped into a slumber. I was recalled to conscious- 
ness by the well-known intimation, "Waiter ! " a«d replying, "Sir ! " 
found a gentleman standing at No. 4 table. The reader (shall I 
add, the observant reader 1) will please to notice the locality of the 
gentleman, — at No. Jf. table. 

He had one of the new-fangled uncollapsible bags in his hand 
(which I am against, for I don't see why you shouldn't collapse, while 
you are about it, as your fathers collapsed before you), and he said : 
"I want to dine, waiter. I shall sleep here to-night." 
" Very good, sir. What will you take for dinner, sir ? " 
" Soup, bit of codfish, oyster sauce, and the joint." 
" Thank you, sir." 

I rang the chambermaid's bell ; and Mrs. Pratchett marched in, 
according to custom, demurely carrying a lighted flat candle before 
her, as if she was one of a long public procession, all the other 
members of which was invisible. 

In the meanwhile the gentleman had gone up to the mantel- 
piece, right in front of the fire, and had laid his forehead against 
the mantel-piece (which it is a low one, and brought him into the 
attitude of leap-frog), and had heaved a tremenjous sigh. His 
hair was long and lightish ; and when he laid his forehead against 
the mantel-piece, his hair all fell in- a dusty fluff together over his 
eyes ; and when he now turned round and lifted up his head again, 
it all fell in a dusty fluff together over his ears. This gave him 
a wild appearance, similar to a blasted heath. 

"0! The chambermaid. Ah!" He was turning something 
in his mind. "To be sure. Yes. I won't go up-stairs now, if 
you will take my bag. It will be enough for the present to know 
my number. — Can you give me 24 B ? " 
(0 Conscience, what a Adder art thou !) 

Mrs. Pratchett allotted him the room, and took his bag to it. 
He then went back before the fire, and fell a biting his nails. 

" Waiter ! " biting between the words, " give me," bite, " pen and 
paper; and in five minutes," bite, "let me have, if you please," 
bite, "a," bite, "Messenger." 



362 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

Unmindful of his waning soup, he wrote and sent off six notes 
before he touched his dinner. Three were City ; three West-End. ' 
The City letters were to Cornhill, Ludgate-hill, and Farringdon- 
street. The West-End letters were to Great Marlborough-street, 
New Burlington-street, and Piccadilly. Everybody was systemati- 
cally denied at every one of the six places, and there was not a ves- 
tige of any answer. Our light porter whispered to me, when he 
came back with that report, "All Booksellers." 

But before then he had cleared off his dinner, and his bottle of 
wine. He now — mark the concurrence with the document formerly 
given in full ! — knocked a plate of biscuits off the table with his 
agitated elber (but without breakage), and demanded boiling brandy- 
and-water. 

Now fully convinced that it was Himself, I perspired with the ut- 
most freedom. When he became flushed with the heated stimulant 
referred to, he again demanded pen and paper, and passed the suc- 
ceeding two hours in producing a manuscript which he put in the 
fire when completed. He then went up to bed, attended by Mrs. 
Pratchett. Mrs. Pratchett (who was aware of my emotions) told 
me, on coming down, that she had noticed his eye rolling into every 
corner of the passages and staircase, as if in search of his Lug- 
gage, and that, looking back as she shut the door of 24 B, she per- 
ceived him with his coat already thrown off immersing himself bodily 
under the bedstead, like a chimley-sweep before the appHcation of 
machinery. 

The next day— I forbear the horrors of that night — was a very 
foggy day in our part of London, insomuch that it was necessary to 
light the Coffee-room gas. We was still alone, and no feverish words 
of mine can do justice to the fitfulness of his appearance as he sat 
at No. 4 table, increased by there being something wrong with the 

meter. 

Having again ordered his dinner, he went out, and was out lor 
the best part' of two hours. Inquiring on his return whether any 
of the answers had arrived, and receiving an unqualified negative, 
his instant call was for mulligatawny, the cayenne pepper, and orange 

Feeling that the mortal struggle was now at hand, I also felt that 
I must be equal to him, and with that view resolved that whatever 
he took I would take. Behind my partition, but keeping my eye 
on him over the curtain, I therefore operated on Mulligatawny, Cay- 
enne Pepper, and Orange Brandy. And at a later period of the 
day, when he again said, " Orange Brandy," I said so too, in a lower 
tone, to George, my Second Lieutenant (my First was absent on 
leave), who acts between me and the bar. 



SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 363 

Throughout that awful day he walked about the Coffee-room con- 
tinually. Often he came close up to my partition, and then his 
eye rolled within, too evidently in search of any signs of his Lug- 
gage. Half-past six came, and I laid his cloth. He ordered a 
bottle of old Brown. I likewise ordered a bottle of old Brown. He 
drank his. I drank mine (as nearly as my duties would permit) 
glass for glass against his. He topped with coffee and a small glass. 
I topped with coffee and a small glass. He dozed. I dozed. At 
last, " Waiter ! " — and he ordered his bill. The moment was now 
at hand when we two must be locked in the deadly grapple. 

Swift as the arrow from the bow, I had formed my resolution ; 
in other words, I had hammered it out between nine and nine. It 
was, that I would be the first to open up the subject with a full 
acknowledgment, and would offer any gradual settlement within my 
power. He paid his bill (doing what was right by attendance) 
with his eye rolling about him to the last for any tokens of his Lug- 
gage. One only time our gaze then met, with the lustrous fixed- 
ness (I believe I am correct in imputing that character to it ?) of the 
well-known Basilisk. The decisive moment had arrived. 

With a tolerable steady hand, though with humility, I laid The 
Proofs before him. 

" Gracious Heavens ! " he cries out, leaping up, and catching hold 
of his hair. " What's this ? Print ! " 

"Sir," I replied, in a calming voice, and bending forward, "I 
humbly acknowledge to being the unfortunate cause of it. But I 
hope, sir, that when you have heard the circumstances explained, 
and the innocence of my intentions — " 

To my amazement, I was stopped short by his catching me in 
both his arms, and pressing me to his breast-bone; where I must 
confess to my face (and particular, nose) having undergone some 
temporary vexation from his wearing his coat buttoned high up, and 
his buttons being uncommon hard. 

" Ha, ha, ha ! " he cries, releasing me with a wild laugh, and grasp- 
ing my hand. " What is your name, my Benefactor ? " 

" My name, sir " (I was crumpled, and puzzled to make him out), 
" is Christopher ; and I hope, sir, that, as such, when you've heard 
my ex — " 

" In print ! " he exclaims again, dashing The Proofs over and over 
as if he was bathing in them. " In print ! ! Christopher ! Philan- 
thropist ! Nothing can recompense you, — but what sum of money 
would be acceptable to you 1 " 

I had drawn a step back from him, or I should have suffered from 
his buttons again. 

" Sir, I assure you, I have been already well paid, and — " 



364 SOMEBODY'S LUGGAGE. 

" No, no, Christopher ! Don't talk like that ! What sum of 
money would be acceptable to you, Christopher ? Would you find 
twenty pounds acceptable, Christopher ? " 

However great my surprise, I naturally found words to say, " Sir, 
I am not aware that the man was ever yet born without more than 
the average amount of water on the brain as would not find twenty 
pounds acceptable. But — extremely obliged to you, sir, I'm sure ;" 
for he had tumbled it out of his purse and crammed it in my hand 
in two bank-notes ; " but I could wish to know, sir, if not intruding, 
how I have merited this liberality 1 " 

"Know then, my Christopher," he says, "that from boyhood's 
hour I have unremittingly and unavailingly endeavoured to get into 
print. Know, Christopher, that all the Booksellers alive — and 
several dead — have refused to put me into print. Know, Christo- 
pher, that I have written unprinted Reams. But they shall be read 
to you, my friend and brother. You sometimes have a holiday ? " 

Seeing the great danger I was in, I had the presence of mind to 
answer, " Never ! " To make it more final, I added, " Never ! Not 
from the cradle to the grave." 

"Well," says he, thinking no more about that, and chuckling at 
his proofs again. " But I am in print ! The first flight of ambition 
emanating from my father's lowly cot is realised at length ! The 
golden bowl," — he was getting on, — " struck by the magic hand, 
has emitted a complete and perfect sound ! When did this hap- 
pen, my Christopher ? " 

"Which happen, sir?" 

"This," he held it out at arm's length to admire it, — "this 
Per-rint." 

When I had given him my detailed account of it, he grasped me 
by the hand again, and said : 

" Dear Christopher, it should be gratifying to you to know that 
you are an instrument in the hands of Destiny. Because you are.'^ 

A passing Something of a melancholy cast put it into my head 
to shake it, and to say, " Perhaps we all are." 

"I don't mean that," he answered; "I don't take that wide 
range ; I confine myself to the special case. Observe me well, my 
Christopher ! Hopeless of getting rid, through any eff'ort of my 
own, of any of the manuscripts among my Luggage, — all of which, 
send them where I would, were always coming back to me, — it 
is now some seven years since I left that Luggage here, on the desper- 
ate chance, either that the too, too faithful manuscripts would come 
back to me no more, or that some one less accursed than I might 
give them to the world. You follow me, my Christopher 1 " 

"Pretty well, sir." I followed him so far as to judge that he 



MBS. LIREIPER'S LODGINGS. 365 

had a weak head, and that the Orange, the Boiling, and Old 
Brown combined was beginning to tell. (The Old B^iwn bein^ 
heady, is best adapted to seasoned eases ) ' ^ 

''Years elapsed, and those compositions slumbered in dust 
At length, Destiny, choosing her agent from aU mankind, sent You 

G^nt waT& ^"' '' '■ ''' "^^'^<=* -- •>-' --<>-. -1 *e 
a-tStoe"^'*' ^^^ °^ ^'" '''''' ^^'"' ^^ "^^ ^^''' ^°d he stood 

.•t'ln"V' '?«,^«>"''^ded liimself in a state of excitement, "we must 
sit up aU night my Christopher. I must correct thes Proofs fo 
the press. Fill all the inkstands, and bring me several new 



He smeared himself and he smeared The Proofs, the night 
through, to that degree that when Sol gave him warning to depart 
(ma four-wheeler) few could have said which was them, and 
which was him, and which was blots. His last instructions was, 
that I should instantly run and take his corrections to the office 
ot the present Journal. I did so. They most likely will not 
appear m pnnt, for I noticed a message being brought round from 
Beauford Printing House, while I was a throwing this concluding 
statement on paper, that the ole resources of that establishment 
was unable to make out what they meant. Upon which a certain 
gentleman m company, as I will not more particularly name — 
but of whom It will be sufficient to remark, standing on the broad 
basis of a wave-girt isle, that whether we regard him in the light 
ot, — laughed, and put the corrections in the fire. 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

IN TWO CHAPTERS. 

Chapter I. 

HOW MRS. LIRRIPER CARRIED ON THE BUSINESS. 

Whoever would begin to be worried with letting Lodgings that 
wasn t a lone woman with a living to get is a thing inconceivable 
to me, my dear ; excuse the familiarity, but it comes natural to 
me in my own httle room, when wishing to open my mind to those 
that I can trust, and I should be truly thankful if they were all 

1 The remainder of this complimentary parenthesis editorially struck out. 



366 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 



mankind, but such is not so, for have but a Furnished bi 1 m the 
window and your watch on the mantel-piece, and farewell to it if 
you turn your back for but a second, however gentlemanly the 
manners ; nor is being of your own sex any safeguard, as I have 
reason, in the form of sugar-tongs to know, for that lady (and a 
fine woman she was) got me to run for a glass of water, on the 
plea of going to be confined, which certainly turned out true, but 
it was in the Station-house. . 

Number Eighty-one Norfolk-street, Strand — situated midway 
between the City and Saint James's, and within five minutes' walk 
of the principal places of pubHc amusement— is my address. I 
have rented this house many years, as the parish rate-books will 
testify • and I could wish my landlord was as alive to the fact as 
I am myself; but no, bless you, not a half a pound of pamt to save 
his life, nor so much, my dear, as a tile upon the roof, though on 
your bended knees. ^t x> ^^ 

My dear, you never have found Number Eighty-one Norfolk- 
street Strand advertised in Bradshaw's Railway Guide, and with 
the blessing of Heaven you never will or shall so find it Some 
there are who do not think it lowering themselves to make their 
names that cheap, and even going the lengths of a portrait of the 
house not like it with a blot in every window and a coach and 
four at the door, but what will suit Wozenham's lower down on 
the other side of the way will not suit me. Miss Wozenham having 
her opinions and me having mine, though when it comes to system- 
atic underbidding capable of being proved on oath m a court ot 
justice and taking the form of " If Mrs. Lirriper names eighteen 
shiUino-s a week, I name fifteen and six," it then comes to a sett e- 
ment between yourself and your conscience, supposing for the sake 
of argument your name to be Wozenham, which I am well aware 
it is not or my opinion of you would be greatly lowered, and as to 
airy bedrooms and a night-porter in constant attendance the less 
said the better, the bedrooms being stuffy and the porter stuff. , 
It is forty years ago since me and my poor Lirriper got married ; 
at Saint Clement's Danes, where I now have a sitting m a very ■ 
pleasant pew with genteel company and my own hassock, and i 
being partial to evening service not too crowded. My poor Lir- 
riper was a handsome figure of a man, with a beaming eye and a , 
voice as mellow as a musical instrument made of honey and steel, but , 
he had ever been a free liver being in the commercial travelling line ^ 
and travelling what he called a limekiln road — " a dry road, Emma 
my dear," my poor Lirriper says to me, " where I have to lay the dust 
with one drink or another all day long and half the night, and it 
wears me Emma" —and this led to his running through a gopa 




MRS. LIRRIPER S LODGINGS. 



368 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

deal and might have run through the turnpike too when that 
dreadful horse that never would stand still for a single instant 
set off, but for its being night and the gate shut, and consequently 
took his wheel, my poor Lirriper and the gig smashed to atoms 
and never spoke afterwards. He was a handsome figure of a man, 
and a man with a jovial heart and a sweet temper ; but if they 
had come up then they never could have given you the mellowness 
of his voice, and indeed I consider photographs wanting in mellow- 
ness as a general rule and making you look like a new-ploughed 
field. 

My poor Lirriper being behindhand with the world and being 
buried at Hatfield church in Hertfordshire, not that it was his 
native place but that he had a liking for the Salisbury Arms 
where we went upon our wedding-day and passed as happy a fort- 
night as ever happy was, I went round to the creditors and I says 
" Gentlemen I am acquainted with the fact that I am not answer- 
able for my late husband's debts but I wish to pay them for I am 
his lawful wife and his good name is dear to me. I am going 
into the Lodgings gentlemen as a business and if I prosper every 
farthing that my late husband owed shall be paid for the sake of 
the love I bore him, by this right hand." It took a long time to 
do but it was done, and the silver cream-jug which is between our- 
selves and the bed and the mattress in my room up-stairs (or it 
would have found legs so sure as ever the Furnished bill was up) 
being presented by the gentlemen engraved " To Mrs. Lirriper a 
mark of grateful respect for her honourable conduct " gave me a 
turn which was too much for my feelings, till Mr. Betley which at 
that time had the parlours and loved his joke says " Cheer up Mrs. 
Lirriper, you should feel as if it was only your christening and they 
were your godfathers and godmothers which did promise for you." 
And it brought me round, and I don't mind confessing to you my 
dear that I then put a sandwich and a drop of sherry in a little 
basket and went down to Hatfield churchyard outside the coach 
and kissed my hand and laid it with a kind of proud and swelling 
love on my husband's grave, though bless you it had taken me so 
long to clear his name that my wedding-ring was worn quite fine 
and smooth when I laid it on the green green waving grass. 

I am an old woman now and my good looks are gone but that's 
me my dear over the plate-warmer and considered like in the times 
when you used to pay two guineas on ivory and took your chance 
pretty much how you came out, which made you very careful how 
you left it about afterwards because people were turned so red and 
uncomfortable by mostly guessing it was somebody else quite dif- 
ferent, and there was once a certain person that had put his money 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 369 

in a hop business that came in one morning to pay his rent and 
his respects being the second floor that would have taken it down 
from its hook and put it in his breast-pocket — you understand 
my dear — for the L, he says of the original — only there was no 
mellowness in his voice and I wouldn't let him, but his opinion of it 
you may gather from his saying to it " Speak to me Emma ! " which 
was far from a rational observation no doubt but still a tribute to 
its being a likeness, and I think myself it was like me when I was 
young and wore that sort of stays. 

But it was about the Lodgings that I was intending to hold 
forth and certainly I ought to know something of the business 
having been in it so long, for it was early in the second year of 
my married life that I lost my poor Lirriper and I set up at 
Islington directly afterwards and afterwards came here, being 
two houses and eight-and-thirty years and some losses and a deal 
of experience. 

Girls are your first trial after fixtures and they try you even 
worse than what I call the Wandering Christians, though why 
they should roam the earth looking for bills and then coming in 
and viewing the apartments and stickling about terms and never at 
all wanting them or dreaming of taking them being already pro- 
vided, is a mystery I should be thankful to have explained if by 
any miracle it could be. It's wonderful they live so long and 
i thrive so on it but I suppose the exercise makes it healthy, knock- 
ing so much and going from house to house and up and down-stairs 
''' all day, and then their pretending to be so particular and punctual 
< is a most astonishing thing, looking at their watches and saying 
" Could you give me the refusal of the rooms till twenty minutes 
I past eleven the day after to-morrow in the forenoon, and supposing 
\ it to be considered essential by my friend from the country could 
there be a small iron bedstead put in the little room upon the 
stairs ? " Why when I was new to it my dear I used to consider 
before I promised and to make my mind anxious with calculations 
and to get quite wearied out with disappointments, but now I says 
" Certainly by all means " well knowing it's a Wandering Chris- 
tian and I shall hear no more about it, indeed by this time I know 
most of the Wandering Christians by sight as well as they know 
me, it being the habit of each individual revolving round London 
in that capacity to come back about twice a year, and it's very 
remarkable that it runs in families and the children grow up to it, 
but even were it otherwise I should no sooner hear of the friend 
from the country which is a certain sign than I should nod and say 
to myself You're a Wandering Christian, though whether they are 
(as I have heard) persons of small property with a taste for regu- 



370 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

lar employment and frequent change of scene I cannot undertake to 
tell you. 

Girls as I was beginning to remark are one of your first and your 
lasting troubles, being like your teeth which begin with convul- 
sions and never cease tormenting you from the time you cut them 
till they cut you, and then you don't want to part with them which 
seems hard but we must all succumb or buy artificial, and even 
where you get a will nine times out of ten you'll get a dirty face 
with it and naturally lodgers do not like good society to be shown 
in with a smear of black across the nose or a smudgy eyebrow. 
AVhere they pick the black up is a mystery I cannot solve, as in 
the case of the willingest girl that ever came into a house half- 
starved poor thing, a girl so willing that I called her Willing Sophy 
down upon her knees scrubbing early and late and ever cheerful 
but always smiling with a black face. And I says to Sophy, " Now 
Sophy my good girl have a regular day for your stoves and keep the 
width of the Airy between yourself and the blacking and do not 
brush your hair with the bottoms of the sauce-pans and do not 
meddle with the snuffs-of the candles and it stands to reason that 
it can no longer be" yet there it was and always on her nose, 
which turning up and being broad at the end seemed to boast 
of it and caused warning from a steady gentleman and excellent 
lodger with breakfast by the week but a little irritable and use of 
a sitting-room when required, his words being "Mrs. Lirriper I 
have arrived at the point of admitting that the Black is a man and 
a brother, but only in a natural form and when it can't be got off." 
Well consequently I put poor Sophy on to other work and forbid 
her answering the door or answering a bell on any account but she was 
so unfortunately willing that nothing would stop her flying up the 
kitchen-stairs whenever a bell was heard to tingle. I put it to 
her " Sophy Sophy for goodness' goodness' sake where does it 
come from ? " To which that poor unlucky willing mortal burst- 
ing out crying to see me so vexed replied " I took a deal of black 
into me ma'am when I was a small child being much neglected 
and I think it must be, that it works out," so it continuing to 
work out of that poor thing and not having another fault to find 
with her I says " Sophy what do you seriously think of my help- 
ing you away to New South Wales where it might not be noticed?" 
Nor did I ever repent the money which was well spent, for she 
married the ship's cook on the voyage (himself a Mulotter) and did 
well and lived happy, and so far as ever I heard it was not noticed 
in a new state of society to her dying day. 

In what way Miss Wozenham lower down on the other side of 
the way reconciled it to her feelings as a lady (which she is not) 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 371 

to entice Mary Anne Perkinsop from my service is best known to 
herself, I do not know and I do not wish to know how opinions 
are formed at Wozenham's on any point. But Mary Anne Perkin- 
sop although I behaved handsomely to her and she behaved un- 
handsomely to me was worth her weight in gold as overawing 
lodgers without driving them away, for lodgers would be far more 
sparing of their bells with Mary Anne than I ever knew them to 
be with Maid or Mistress, which is a great triumph especially when 
accompanied with a cast in the eye and a bag of bones, but it was 
the steadiness of her way with them through her father's having 
failed in Pork. It was Mary Anne's looking so' respectable in her 
person and being so strict in her spirits that conquered the tea- 
and-sugarest gentleman (for he weighed them both in a pair of 
scales every morning) that I have ever had to deal with and no 
lamb grew meeker, still it afterwards came round to me that Miss 
Wozenham happening to pass and seeing Mary Anne take in the 
milk of a milkman that made free in a rosy-faced way (I think no 
worse of him) with every girl in the street but was quite frozen up 
like the statue at Charing-cross by her, saw Mary Anne's value in 
the lodging business and went as high as one pound per quarter 
more, consequently Mary Anne with not a word betwixt us says 
" If you will provide yourself Mrs. Lirriper in a month from this 
day / have already done the same," which hurt me and I said so, 
and she then hurt me more by insinuating that her father having 
failed in Pork had laid her open to it. 

My dear I do assure you it's a harassing thing to know what 
kind of girls to give the preference to, for if they are lively they 
get bell'd off their legs and if they are sluggish you suffer from it 
yourself in complaints and if they are sparkling-eyed they get 
made love to, and if they are smart in their persons they try on 
your Lodgers' bonnets and if they are musical I defy you to keep 
them away from bands and organs, and allowing for any difference 
you like in their heads their heads will be always out of window 
just the same. And then what the gentlemen like in girls the 
ladies don't, which is fruitful hot water for all parties, and then 
there's temper though such a temper as Caroline Maxey's I hope 
not often. A good-looking black-eyed girl was Caroline and a 
comely-made girl to your cost when she did break out and laid 
about her, as took place first and last through a new-married 
couple come to see London in the first floor and the lady very high 
and it xoa^ supposed not liking the good looks of Caroline having 
none of her own to spare, but anyhow she did try Caroline though 
that was no excuse. So one afternoon Caroline comes down into 
the kitchen flushed and flashing, and she says to me " Mrs. Lirri- 



372 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

per that woman in the first has aggravated me past bearing," I 
says " Caroline keep your temper," Caroline says with a curdling 
laugh " Keep my temper ? You're right Mrs. Lirriper, so I will. 
Capital D her ! " bursts out Caroline (you might have struck me 
into the centre of the earth with a feather when she said it) " I'll 
give her a touch of the temper that / keep ! " Caroline downs 
with her hair my dear, screeches and rushes up-stairs, I following 
as fast as my trembling legs could bear me, but before I got into 
the room the dinner-cloth and pink-and-white seiTice all dragged 
off upon the floor with a crash and the new-married couple on their 
backs in the firegrate, him with the shovel and tongs and a dish 
of cucumber across him and a mercy it was summer-time. " Caro- 
line " I says "be calm," but she catches off my cap and tears it in 
her teeth as she passes me, then pounces on the new-married lady 
makes her a bundle of ribbons takes her by the two ears and 
knocks the back of her head upon the carpet Murder screaming all 
the time Policemen running down the street and Wozenham's win- 
dows (judge of my feelings when I came to know it) thrown up 
and Miss Wozenham calling out from the balcony with crocodile's 
tears "It's Mrs. Lirriper been overcharging somebody to madness 
— she'll be murdered — I always thought so — Pleeseman save 
her ! " My dear four of them and Caroline behind the chiff"oniere 
attacking with the poker and when disarmed prize-fighting with 
her double fists, and down and up and up and down and dreadful ! 
But I couldn't bear to see the poor young creature roughly handled 
and her hair torn when they got the better of her, and I says 
" Gentlemen Policemen pray remember that her sex is the sex of 
your mothers and sisters and your sweethearts, and God bless them 
and you ! " And there she was sitting down on the ground hand- 
cuffed, taking breath against the skirting-board and them cool 
with their coats in strips, and all she says was " Mrs. Lirriper I'm 
sorry as ever I touched you, for you're a kind motherly old thing," 
and it made me think that I had often wished I had been a mother 
indeed and how would my heart have felt if I had been the mother 
of that girl ! Well you know it turned out at the Police-oflBce 
that she had done it before, and she had her clothes away and was 
sent to prison, and when she was to come out I trotted off" to the 
gate in the evening with just a morsel of jelly in that little basket 
of mine to give her a mite of strength to face the world again, and 
there I met with a very decent mother waiting for her son through 
bad company and a stubborn one he was with his half-boots not laced. 
So out came Caroline and I says " Caroline come along with me 
and sit down under the wall where it's retired and eat a little trifle 
that I have brought with me to do you good," and she throws her 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 373 

arras round my neck and says sobbing " why were you never a 
mother when there are such mothers as there are ! " she says, and 
in half a minute more she begins to laugh and says "Did I really 
tear your cap to shreds?" and when I told her "You certainly did 
so Caroline " she laughed again and said while she patted my face 
"Then why do you wear such queer old caps you dear old thing? 
If you hadn't worn such queer old caps I don't think I should 
have done it even then." Fancy the girl ! Nothing could get out 
of her what she was going to do except she would do well enough, 
and we parted she being very thankful and kissing my hands, and 
I nevermore saw or heard of that girl, except that I shall always 
believe that a very genteel cap which was brought anonymous to 
me one Saturday night in an oilskin basket by a most impertinent 
young sparrow of a monkey whistling with dirty shoes on the clean 
steps and playing the harp on the Airy railings with a hoop-stick 
came from Caroline. 

What you lay yourself open to my dear in the way of being the 
object of uncharitable suspicions when you go into the Lodging 
business I have not the words to tell you, but never was I so dis- 
honourable as to have two keys nor would I willingly think it even 
of Miss Wozenham lower down on the other side of the way sincerely 
hoping that it may not be, though doubtless at the same time money 
cannot come from nowhere and it is not reason to suppose that 
Bradshaws put it in for love be it blotty as it may. It is a 
hardship hurting to the feelings that Lodgers open their minds so 
wide to the idea that you are trying to get the better of them and 
shut their minds so close to the idea that they are trying to get the 
better of you, but as Major Jackman says to me "I know the ways 
of this circular world Mrs. Lirriper, and that's one of 'em all round 
it " and many is the little ruffle in my mind that the Major has 
smoothed, for he is a clever man who has seen much. Dear dear, 
thirteen years have passed though it seems but yesterday since 
I was sitting with my glasses on at the open front parlour window 
one evening in August (the parlours being then vacant) reading 
yesterday's paper my eyes for print being poor though still I am 
thankful to say a long sight at a distance, when I hear a gentleman 
come posting across the road and up the street in a dreadful rage 
talking to himself in a fury and d'ing and c'ing somebody. " By 
George ! " says he out loud and clutching his walking-stick, " I'll 
go to Mrs. Lirriper's. Which is Mrs. Lirriper's?" Then looking 
round and seeing me he flourishes his hat right off" his head as if I 
had been the queen and he says, " Excuse the intrusion Madam, 
but pray Madam can you tell me at what number in this street 
there resides a well-known and much-respected lady by the name of 



374 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

Lirriper ? " A little flustered though I must say gratified I took 
ofi" my glasses and courtesied and said " Sir, Mrs. Lirriper is your 
humble servant." " Astonishing ! " says he. "A million pardons ! 
Madam, may I ask you to have the kindness to direct one of your 
domestics to open the door to a gentleman in search of apartments, 
by the name of Jackman ? " I had never heard the name but a 
politer gentleman I never hope to see, for says he " Madam I am 
shocked at your opening the door yourself to no worthier a fellow 
than Jemmy Jackman. After you Madam. I never precede a 
lady." Then he comes into the parlours and he sniff's, and he 
says " Hah ! These are parlours ! Not musty cupboards " he says 
" but parlours, and no smell of coal-sacks." Now my dear it having 
been remarked by some inimical to the whole neighbourhood that 
it always smells of coal-sacks which might prove a drawback to 
Lodgers if encouraged, I says to the Major gently though firmly 
that I think he is referring to Arundel or Surrey or Howard but 
not Norfolk. "Madam" says he "I refer to Wozenham's lower 
down over the way — Madam you can form no notion what Wozen- 
ham's is — Madam it is a vast coal-sack, and Miss Wozenham has 
the principles and manners of a female heaver — Madam from the 
manner in which I have heard her mention you I know she has no 
appreciation of a lady, and from the manner in which she has con- 
ducted herself towards me I know she has no appreciation of a 
gentleman — Madam my name is Jackman — should you require 
any other reference than what I have already said, I name the 
Bank of England — perhaps you know it ! " Such was the be- 
ginning of the Major's occupying the parlours and from that hour to 
this the same and a most obliging Lodger and punctual in all re- 
spects except one irregular which I need not particularly specify, 
but made up for by his being a protection and at all times ready 
to fill in the papers of the Assessed Taxes and Juries and that, 
and once collared a young man with the drawing-room clock under 
his coat, and once on the parapets with his own hands and blankets 
put out the kitchen chimney and afterwards attending the summons 
made a most eloquent speech against the Parish before the magis- 
trates and saved the engine, and ever quite the gentleman though 
passionate. And certainly Miss Wozenham's detaining the trunks 
and umbrella was not in a liberal spirit though it may have been 
according to her rights in law or an act / would myself have stooped 
to, the Major being so much the gentleman that though he is far 
from tall he seems almost so when he has his shirt-frill out and his 
frock-coat on and his hat with the curly brims, and in what service 
he was I cannot truly tell you my dear whether Militia or Foreign, 
for I never heard him even name himself as Major but always 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 375 

simple " Jemmy Jackman " and once soon after he came when I 
felt it my duty to let him know that Miss Wozenham had put it 
about that he was no Major and I took the liberty of adding "which 
you are sir " his words were " Madam at any rate I am not a 
Minor, and sufficient for the day is the evil thereof" which cannot 
be denied to be the sacred truth, nor yet his military ways of hav- 
ing his boots with only the dirt brushed off taken to him in the 
front parlour every morning on a clean plate and varnishing them 
himself with a little sponge and a saucer and a whistle in a whisper 
so sure as ever his breakfast is ended, and so neat his ways that it 
never soils his linen which is scrupulous though more in quality than 
quantity, neither that nor his mustachios whicK to the best of my 
belief are done at the same time and which are as black and shin- 
ing as his boots, his head of hair being a lovely white. 

It was the third year nearly up of the Major's being in the par- 
lours that early one morning in the month of February when Par- 
liament was coming on and you may therefore suppose a number of 
impostors were about ready to take hold of anything they could get, 
a gentleman and a lady from the country came in to view the Second, 
and I well remember that I had been looking out of window and had 
watched them and the heavy sleet driving down the street together 
looking for bills. I did not quite take to tlie face of the gentleman 
though he was good-looking too but the lady was a very pretty young 
thing and delicate, and it seemed too rough for her to be out at all 
though she had only come from the Adelphi Hotel which would not 
have been much above a quarter of a mile if the weather had been less 
severe. Now it did so happen ray dear that I had been forced to 
put five shillings weekly additional on the second in consequence of 
a loss from running away full dressed as if going out to a dinner-party, 
which was very artful and had made me rather suspicious taking 
it along with Parliament, so when the gentleman proposed three 
months certain and the money in advance and leave them reserved 
to renew on the same terms for six months more, I says I was not 
quite certain but that I might have engaged myself to another party 
but would step down-stairs and look into it if they would take a seat. 
They took a seat and I went down to the handle of the Major's 
door that I had already began to consult finding it a great blessing, 
and I knew by his whistling in a whisper that he was varnishing 
his boots which was generally considered private, however he kindly 
calls out " If it's you. Madam, come in," and I went in and told him. 

" Well, Madam," says the Major rubbing his nose — as I did fear 
at the moment with the black sponge but it was only his knuckle, 
he being always neat and dexterous with his fingers — "well, 
Madam, I suppose you would be glad of the money?" 



376 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

I was delicate of saying "Yes" too out, for a little extra colour 
rose into the Major's cheeks and there was irregularity which I will 
not particularly specify in a quarter which I will not name. 

"I am of opinion, Madam," says the Major, " that when money 
is ready for you — when it is ready for you, Mrs. Lirriper — you 
ought to take it. What is there ^against it. Madam, in this case 
up-stairs ? " 

" I really cannot say there is anything against it sir, still I thought 
I would consult you." 

" You said a newly-married couple, I think, Madam ? " says the 
Major. 

I says " Ye-es. Evidently. And indeed the young lady men- 
tioned to me in a casual way that she had not been married many 
months." 

The Major rubbed his nose again and stirred the varnish round 
and round in its little saucer with his piece of sponge and took to 
his whistling in a whisper for a few moments. Then he says " You 
would call it a G-ood Let, Madam 1 " 

" certainly a Good Let sir." 

" Say they renew for the additional six months. Would it put 
you about very much Madam if — if the worst was to come to the 
worst ? " said the Major. 

" Well I hardly know," I says to the Major. " It depends upon 
circumstances. Would you object sir for instance ? " 

" I ? " says the Major. " Object ? Jemmy Jackraan ? Mrs. Lirri- 
per close with the proposal." 

So I went up-stairs and accepted, and they came in next day 
which was Saturday and the Major was so good as to draw up a 
Memorandum of an agreement in a beautiful round hand and expres- 
sions that sounded to me equally legal and military, and Mr. Edson 
signed it on the Monday morning and the Major called upon Mr. 
Edson on the Tuesday and Mr. Edson called upon the Major on the 
Wednesday and the Second and the parlours were as friendly as 
could be wished. 

The three months paid for had run out and we had got without 
any fresh overtures as to payment into May my dear, when there 
came an obligation upon Mr. Edson to go a business expedition right 
across the Isle of Man, which fell quite unexpected upon that pretty 
little thing and is not a place that according to my views is particu- 
larly in the way to anywhere at any time but that may be a matter 
of opinion. So short a notice was it that he was to go next day, 
and dreadfully she cried poor pretty, and I am sure I cried too when 
I saw her on the cold pavement in the sharp east wind — it being 
a very backward spring that year — taking a last leave of him with 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 377 

her pretty bright hair blowing this way and that and her arms cling- 
ing round his neck and him saying " There there there. Now let 
me go Peggy." And by that time it was plain that what the Major 
had been so accommodating as to say he would not object to happen- 
ing in the house, would happen in it, and I told her as much when 
he was gone while I comforted her with my arm up the staircase, 
for I says " You will soon have others to keep up for my pretty 
and you must think of that." 

His letter never came when it ought to have come and what she 
went through morning after morning when the postman brought 
none for her the very postman himself compassionated when she ran 
down to the door, and yet we cannot wonder at its being calculated 
to blunt the feelings to have all the trouble of other people's letters 
and none of the pleasure and doing it oftener in the mud and mizzle 
than not and at a rate of wages more resembling Little Britain than 
Great. But at last one morning when she was too poorly to come 
running down-stairs he says to me with a pleased look in his face 
that made me next to love the man in his uniform coat though he 
was dripping wet "I have taken you first in the street this morning 
Mrs. Lirriper, for here's the one for Mrs. Edson." I went up to 
her bedroom with it as fast as ever I could go, and she sat up in 
bed when she saw it and kissed it and tore it open and then a blank 
stare came upon her. " It's very short ! " she says lifting her large 
eyes to my face. " Mrs. Lirriper it's very short !" I says " My 
dear Mrs. Edson no doubt that's because your husband hadn't time 
to write more just at that time." " No doubt, no doubt," says she, 
and puts her two hands on her face and turns round in her bed. 

I shut her softly in and I crept down-stairs and I tapped at the 
Major's door, and when the Major having his thin slices of bacon in 
his own Dutch oven saw me he came out of his chair and put me 
down on the sofa. " Hush ! " says he, " I see something's the matter. 
Don't speak — take time." I says "0 Major I'm afraid there's 
cruel work up-stairs." "Yes yes" says he "I had begun to be 
afraid of it — take time." And then in opposition to his own words 
he rages out frightfully, and says " I shall never forgive myself 
Madam, that I, Jemmy Jackman, didn't see it all that morning — 
didn't go straight up-stairs when my boot-sponge was in my hand — 
didn't force it down his throat — and choke him dead with it on the 
spot ! " 

The Major and me agreed when we came to ourselves that just 
at present we could do no more than take on to suspect nothing 
and use our best endeavours to keep that poor young creature quiet, 
and what I ever should have done without the Major when it got 
about among the organ-men that quiet was our object is unknown, 



378 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

for he made lion and tiger war upon them to that degree that with- 
out seeing it I could not have believed it was in any gentleman to 
have such a power of bursting out with fire-irons walking-sticks 
water-jugs coals potatoes off his table the very hat off his head, 
and at the same time so furious in foreign languages that they would 
stand with their handles half- turned fixed like the Sleeping Ugly — 
for I cannot say Beauty. 

Ever to see the postman come near the house now gave me such 
a fear that it was a reprieve when he went by, but in about another 
ten days or a fortnight he says again, "Here's one for Mrs. Edson. 
— Is she pretty well?" "She is pretty well postman, but not 
well enough to rise so early as she used " which was so far gospel- 
truth. 

I carried the letter in to the Major at his breakfast and I says 
tottering " Major I have not the courage to take it up to her." 

"It's an ill-looking villain of a letter," says the Major. 

"I have not the courage Major" I says again in a tremble "to 
take it up to her." 

After seeming lost in consideration for some moments the Major 
says, raising his head as if something new and useful had occurred 
to his mind "Mrs. Lirriper, I shall never forgive myself that I, 
Jemmy Jackman, didn't go straight up-stairs that morning when 
my boot-sponge was in my hand — and force it down his throat — 
and choke him dead with it." 

"Major" I says a little hasty "you didn't do it which is a 
blessing, for it would have done no good and I think your sponge 
was better employed on your own honourable boots." 

So we got to be rational, and planned that I should tap at her 
bedroom door and lay the letter on the mat outside and wait on the 
upper landing for what might happen, and never was gunpowder 
cannon-balls or shells or rockets more dreaded than that dreadful 
letter was by me as I took it to the second floor. 

A terrible loud scream sounded through the house the minute 
after she had opened it, and I found her on the floor lying as if her 
life was gone. My dear I never looked at the face of the letter 
which was lying open by her, for there was no occasion. 

Everything I needed to bring her round the Major brought up 
with his own hands, besides running out to the chemist's for what 
was not in the house and likewise having the fiercest of all his 
many skirmishes with a musical instrument representing a ball- 
room I do not know in what particular country and company 
waltzing in and out at folding-doors with rolling eyes. When after 
a long time I saw her coming to, I slipped on the landing till I 
heard her cry, and then I went in and says cheerily " Mrs. Edson 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 379 

you're not well my dear and it's not to be wondered at," as if I 
had not been in before. Whether she believed or disbelieved I can- 
not say and it would signify nothing if I could, but I stayed by her 
for hours and then she God ever blesses me ! and says she will try 
to rest for her head is bad. 

"Major," I whispers, looking in at the parlours, "I beg and 
pray of you don't go out." 

The Major whispers, " Madam, trust me I will do no such a thing. 
How is she ? " 

I says " Major the good Lord above us only knows what burns 
and rages in her poor mind. I left her sitting at her window. I 
am going to sit at mine." 

It came on afternoon and it came on evening. Norfolk is a 
delightful street to lodge in — provided you don't go lower down — 
but of a summer evening when the dust and waste paper lie in it 
and stray children play in it and a kind of a gritty calm and bake 
settles on it and a peal of church-bells is practising in the neighbour- 
hood it is a trifle dull, and never have I seen it since at such a time 
and never shall I see it evermore at such a time without seeing the 
dull June evening when that forlorn young creature sat at her open 
corner window on the second and me at my open corner window (the 
other comer) on the third. Something merciful, something wiser 
and better far than my own self, had moved me while it was yet 
light to sit in my bonnet and shawl, and as the shadows fell and 
the tide rose I could sometimes — when I put out my head and 
looked at her window below — see that she leaned out a little 
looking down the street. It was just settling dark when I saw her 
in the street. 

So fearful of losing sight of her that it almost stops my breath 
while I tell it, I went down-stairs faster than I ever moved in all 
my life and only tapped with my hand at the Major's door in 
passing it and slipping out. She was gone already. I made the 
same speed down the street and when I came to the corner of 
Howard-street I saw that she had turned it and was there plain 
before me going towards the west. with what a thankful heart 
I saw her going along ! 

She was quite unacquainted with London and had very seldom 
been out for more than an airing in our own street where she knew 
two or three little children belonging to neighbours and had some- 
times stood among them at the street looking at the water. She 
must be going at hazard I knew, still she kept the bye-streets 
quite correctly as long as they would serve her, and then turned up 
into the Strand. But at every corner I could see her head turned 
one way, and that way was always the river way. 



380 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

It may have been only the darkness and quiet of the Adelphi 
that caused her to strike into it but she struck into it much as 
readily as if she had set out to go there, Avhich perhaps was the 
case. She went straight down to the Terrace and along it and 
looked over the iron rail, and I often woke afterwards in my own 
bed with the horror of seeing her do it. The desertion of the 
wharf below and the flowing of the high water there seemed to 
settle her purpose. She looked about as if to make out the way 
down, and she struck out the right way or the wrong way — I 
don't know which, for I don't know the place before or since — and 
I followed her the way she went. 

It was noticeable that all this time she never once looked back. 
But there was now a great change in the manner of her going, and 
instead of going at a steady quick walk with her arms folded 
before her, — among the dark dismal arches she went in a wild 
way with her arms opened wide, as if they were wings and she was 
flying to her death. 

We were on the wharf and she stopped. I stopped. I saw her 
hands at her bonnet-strings, and I rushed between her and the brink 
and took her round the waist with both my arms. She might have 
drowned me, I felt then, but she could never have got quit of me. 

Down to that moment my mind had been all in a maze and not 
half an idea had I had in it what I should say to her, but the instant I 
touched her it came to me like magic and I had my natural voice 
and my senses and even almost my breath. 

"Mrs. Edson ! " I says " My dear ! Take care. How ever did 
you lose your way and stumble on a dangerous place like this ? 
Why you must have come here by the most perplexing streets in 
all London. No wonder you are lost, I'm sure. And this place 
too ! Why I thought nobody ever got here, except me to order 
my coals and the Major in the parlours to smoke his cigar ! " — for 
I saw that blessed man close by, pretending to it. 

" Hah — Hah — Hum ! " coughs the Major. 

" And good gracious me " I says, " why here he is ! " 

" Halloa ! who goes there ? " says the Major in a military manner. 

"Well!" I says, "if this don't beat everything! Don't you 
know us Major Jackman ? " 

" Halloa ! " says the Major. " Who calls on Jemmy Jackman ? " 
(and more out of breath he was, and did it less like life than I 
should have expected.) 

" Why here's Mrs. Edson Major " I says, " strolling out to cool 
her poor head which has been very bad, has missed her way and 
got lost, and Goodness knows where she might have got to but 
for me coming here to drop an order into my coal merchant's let- 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 381 

ter-box and you coming here to smoke your cigar ! — And you really 
are not well enough my dear " I says to her " to be half so far from 
home \vithout me. — And your arm will be very acceptable I am 
sure Major " I says to him " and I know she may lean upon it as 
heavy as she likes." And now we had both got her — thanks be 
Above ! — one on each side. 

She was all in a cold shiver and she so continued till I laid her 
on her own bed, and up to the early morning she held me by the 
hand and moaned and moaned " wicked, wicked, wicked ! " But 
when at last I made believe to droop my head and be overpowered 
with a dead sleep, I heard that poor young creature give such touch- 
ing and such humble thanks for being preserved from taking her 
own life in her madness that I thought I should have cried my 
eyes out on the counterpane and I knew she was safe. 

Being well enough to do and able to afford it, me and the Major 
laid our little plans next day while she was asleep worn out, and 
so I says to her as soon as I could do it nicely : 

" Mrs. Edson my dear, when Mr. Edson paid me the rent for 
these farther six months — " 

She gave a start and I felt her large eyes look at me, but I went 
on with it and with my needlework. 

" — I can't say that I am quite sure I dated the receipt right. 
Could you let me look at it ? " 

She laid her frozen cold hand upon mine and she looked through 
me when I was forced to look up from my needlework, but I had 
taken the precaution of having on my spectacles. 

" I have no receipt " says she. 

" Ah ! Then he has got it " I says in a careless way. " It's 
of no great consequence. A receipt's a receipt." 

From that time she always had hold of my hand when I could 
spare it which was generally only when I read to her, for of course 
she and me had our bits of needlework to plod at and neither of us 
was very handy at those little things, though I am still rather proud 
of my share in them too considering. And though she took to all 
I read to her, I used to fancy that next to what was taught upon 
the Mount she took most of all to His gentle compassion for us 
poor women and to His young life and to how His mother was 
proud of Him and treasured His sayings in her heart. She had a 
grateful look in her eyes that never never never will be out of mine 
until they are closed in my last sleep, and when I chanced to look 
at her without thinking of it I would always meet that look, and 
she would often offer me her trembling lip to kiss, much more like 
a little affectionate half broken-hearted child than ever I can imag- 
ine any grown person. 



382 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

One time the trembling of this poor lip was so strong and her 
tears ran down so fast that I thought she was going to tell me all 
her woe, so I takes her two hands in mine and I says : 

" No my dear not now, you had best not try to do it now. Wait 
for better times when you have got over this and are strong, and 
then you shall tell me whatever you will. Shall it be agreed 1 " 

With our hands still joined she nodded her head many times, and 
she lifted my hands and put them to her lips and to her bosom. 

" Only one word now my dear " I says. " Is there any one ? " 

She looked inquiringly " Any one ? " 

"That I can go to?" 

She shook her head. 

" No one that I can bring ? " 

She shook her head. 

" No one is wanted by me my dear. Now that may be con- 
sidered past and gone." 

Not much more than a week afterwards — for this was far on 
in the time of our being so together — I was bending over at her 
bedside with my ear down to her lips, by turns listening for her 
breath and looking for a sign of life in her face. At last it came 
in a solemn way — not in a flash but like a kind of pale faint light 
brought very slow to the face. 

She said something to me that had no sound in it, but I saw 
she asked me : 

"Is this death?" 

And I says : 

" Poor dear poor dear, I think it is." 

Knowing somehow that she wanted me to move her weak right 
hand, I took it and laid it on her breast and then folded her other 
hand upon it, and she prayed a good good prayer and I joined in 
it poor me though there were no words spoke. Then I brought 
the baby in its wrappers from where it lay, and I says : 

" My dear this is sent to a childless old woman. This is for 
me to take care of" 

The trembling lip was put up towards my face for the last time, 
and I dearly kissed it. 

" Yes my dear," I says. " Please God ! Me and the Major." 

I don't know how to tell it right, but I saw her soul brighten 
and leap up, and get free and fly away in the grateful look. 



So this is the why and wherefore of its coming to pass my dear 
that we called him Jemmy, being after the Major his own godfather 
with Lirriper for a surname being after myself, and never was a 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 383 

dear child such a brightening thing in a Lodgings or such a play- 
mate to his grandmother as Jemmy to this house and me, and 
always good and minding what he was told (upon the whole) and 
soothing for the temper and making everything pleasanter except 
when he grew old enough to drop his cap down Wozenham's Airy 
and they wouldn't hand it up to him, and being worked into a state 
I put on my best bonnet and gloves and parasol with the child in 
my hand and I says " Miss Wozenham I little thought ever to have 
entered your house but unless my grandson's cap is instantly re- 
stored, the laws of this country regulating the property of the Sub- 
ject shall at length decide betwixt yourself and me, cost what it 
may." With a sneer upon her face which did strike me I must 
say as being expressive of two keys but it may have been a mistake 
and if there is any doubt let Miss Wozenham Imve the full benefit 
of it as is but right, she rang the bell and she says "Jane, is 
there a street-child's old caj) down our Airy ? " I says " Miss 
Wozenham before your housemaid answers that question you must 
allow me to inform you to your face that my grandson is iiot a 
street-child and is not in the habit of wearing old caps. In fact " 
I says " Miss Wozenham I am far from sure that my grandson's 
cap may not be newer than your own " which was perfectly savage 
in me, her lace being the commonest machine-make washed and 
torn besides, but I had been put into a state to begin with fomented 
by impertinence. Miss Wozenham says red in the face " Jane you 
heard my question, is there any child's cap down our Airy ? " " Yes 
Ma'am " says Jane " I think I did see some such rubbish a lying 
there." " Then " says Miss Wozenham "let these visitors out, and 
then throw up that worthless article out of my premises." But 
here the child who had been staring at Miss Wozenham with all 
his eyes and more, frowns down his little eyebrows purses up his 
little mouth puts his chubby legs far apart turns his little dimpled 
fists round and round slowly over one another like a little coff'ee- 
mill, and says to her " Oo impdent to mi Gran, me tut oor hi ! " 
" ! " says Miss Wozenham looking down scornfully at the Mite 
" this is not a street-child is it not ! Really ! " I bursts out laugh- 
ing and I says "Miss Wozenham if this an't a pretty sight to you 
I don't envy your feelings and I wish you good flay. Jemmy come 
along with Gran." And I was still in the best of humours though 
his cap came flying up into the street as if it had been just turned 
on out of the w\ater-plug, and I went home laughing aU the way, 
all owing to that dear boy. 

The miles and miles that me and the Major have travelled with 
Jemmy in the dusk between the lights are not to be calculated, 
Jemmy driving on the coach-box which is the Major's brass-bound 



384 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

writing-desk on the table, me inside in the easy-chair and the Major 
Guard up behind with a brown-paper horn doing it really wonderful. 
I do assure you my dear that sometimes when I have taken a few 
winks in my place inside the coach and have come half awake by 
the flashing light of the fire and have heard that precious pet driv- 
ing and the Major blowing up behind to have the change of horses 
ready when we got to the Inn, I have half believed we were on the 
old North Road that my poor Lirriper knew so well. Then to see 
that child and the Major both wrapped up getting down to warm 
their feet and going stamping about and having glasses of ale out of 
the paper match-boxes, on the chimney-piece is to see the Major 
enjoying it fully as much as the child I am very sure, and it's equal 
to any play when Coachee opens the coach-door to look in at me 
inside and say " Wery 'past that 'tage. — 'Frightened old lady 1 " 

But what my inexpressible feelings were when we lost that child 
can only be compared to the Major's which were not a shade better, 
through his straying out at five years old and eleven o'clock in the 
forenoon and never heard of by word or sign or deed till half-past 
nine at night, when the Major had gone to the Editor of the Times 
newspaper to put in an advertisement, which came out next day 
four-and-twenty hours after he was found, and which I mean always 
carefully to keep in my lavender drawer as the first printed account 
of him. The more the day got on, the more I got distracted and 
the Major too and both of us made worse by the composed ways of 
the police though very civil and obliging and what I must call their 
obstinacy in not entertaining the idea that he was stolen. " We 
mostly find Mum " says the serjeant who came round to comfort 
me, which he didn't at all and he had been one of the private con- 
stables in Caroline's time to which he referred in his opening words 
when he said " Don't give way to uneasiness in your mind Mum, 
it'll all come as right as my nose did when I got the same barked 
by that young woman in your second floor" — says this serjeant 
" we mostly find Mum as people an't over-anxious to have what I 
may call second-hand children. You^ll get him back Mum." " 
but my dear good sir " I says clasping my hands and wringing them 
and clasping them again "he is such an uncommon child ! " "Yes 
Mum " says the serjeant, " we mostly find that too Mum. The 
question is what his clothes were worth." "His clothes"! says 
" were not worth much sir for he had only got his playing-dress on, 
but the dear child! — " "All right Mum" says the serjeant. 
''You'll get him back Mum. And even if he'd had his best 
clothes on, it wouldn't come to worse than his being found wrapped 
up in a cabbage-leaf, a shivering in a lane." His words pierced my 
heart like daggers and daggers, and me and the Major ran in and 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 385 

out like wild things all day long till the Major returning from his 
interview with the Editor of the Times at night rushes into my lit- 
tle room hysterical and squeezes my hand and wipes his eyes and 
says "Joy joy — ofl&cer in plain clothes came up on the steps as I 
was letting myself in — compose your feelings — Jemmy's found." 
Consequently I fainted away and when I came to, embraced the legs 
of the officer in plain clothes who seemed to be taking a kind of a 
quiet inventory in his mind of the property in my little room with 
brown whiskers, and I says " Blessings on you sir where is the Dar- 
ling ! " and he says "In Kennington Station House." I was drop- 
ping at his feet Stone at the image of that Innocence in cells with 
murderers when he adds "He followed the Monkey." I says deem- 
ing it slang language "0 sir explain for a loving grandmother what 
Monkey ! " He says " Him in the spangled cap with the strap under 
the chin, as won't keep on — him as sweeps the crossings on a round 
table and don't want to draw his sabre more than he can help." 
Then I understood it all and most thankfully thanked him, and me 
and the Major and him drove over to Kennington and there we 
found our boy lying quite comfortable before a blazing fire having 
sweetly played himself to sleep upon a small accordion nothing like 
so big as a flat-iron which they had been so kind as to lend him for 
the purpose and which it appeared had been stopped upon a very 
young person. 

My dear the system upon which the Major commenced and as I 
may say perfected Jemmy's learning when he was so small that if 
the dear w^as on the other side of the table you had to look under 
it instead of over it to see him with his mother's own bright hair in 
beautiful curls, is a thing that ought to be known to the Throne 
and Lords and Commons and then might obtain some promotion 
for the Major which he well deserves and would be none the worse 
for (speaking between friends) L. S. D.-ically. When the Major 
first undertook his learning he says to me : 

"I'm going Madam," he says "to make our child a Calculating 
Boy." 

" Major," I says, " you terrify me and may do the pet a perma- 
nent injury you would never forgive yourself." 

" Madam," said the Major, "next to my regret that when I had 
my boot-sponge in my hand, I didn't choke that scoundrel with it 
— on the spot — " 

"There ! For Gracious' sake," I interrupts, "let his conscience 
find him without sponges." 

" — I say next to that regret, Madam," says the Major " would 
be the regret with which my breast," which he tapped, " would be 
surcharged if this fine mind was not early cultivated. But mark 

2c 



386 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

me Madam," says the Major holding up his forefinger "cultivated 
on a principle that will make it a delight." 

" Major " I says " I will be candid with you and tell you openly 
that if ever I find the dear child fall off in his appetite I shall know 
it is his calculations and shall put a stop to them at two minutes' 
notice. Or if I find them mounting to his head " I says, " or strik- 
ing anyways cold to his stomach or leading to anything approaching 
flabbiness in his legs, the result will be the same, but Major you 
are a clever man and have seen much and you love the child and 
are his own godfather, and if you feel a confidence in trying try." 

" Spoken Madam " says the Major "like Emma Lirriper. All I 
have to ask, Madam, is that you will leave my godson and myself 
to make a week or two's preparations for surprising you, and that 
you will give me leave to have up and down any small articles not 
actually in use that I may require from the kitchen." 

" From the kitchen Major ? " I says half feeling as if he had a 
mind to cook the child. 

" From the kitchen " says the Major, and smiles and swells, and 
at the same time looks taller. 

So I passed my word and the Major and the dear boy were shut 
up together for half an hour at a time through a certain while, and 
never could I hear anything going on betwixt them but talking and 
laughing and Jemmy clapping his hands and screaming out numbers, 
so I says to myself " It has not harmed him yet " nor could I on 
examining the dear find any signs of it anywhere about him which 
was likewise a great relief. At last one day Jemmy brings me a 
card in joke in the Major's neat writing "The Messrs. Jemmy 
Jackman" for we had given him the Major's other name too "re- 
quest the honour of Mrs. Lirriper's company at the Jackman Insti- 
tution in the front parlour this evening at five, military time, to 
witness a few slight feats of elementary arithmetic." And if you'll 
believe me there in the front parlour at five punctual to the moment 
was the Major behind the Pembroke table with both leaves up and 
a lot of things from the kitchen tidily set out on old newspapers 
spread atop of it, and there was the Mite stood up on a chair with 
his rosy cheeks flushing and his eyes sparkling clusters of diamonds. 

"Now Gran" says he, "oo tit down and don't oo touch ler 
people " — for he saw with every one of those diamonds of his that 
I was going to give him a squeeze. 

" Very well sir " I says " I am obedient in this good company I 
am sure." And I sits down in the easy-chair that was put for me, 
shaking my sides. 

But picture my admiration when the Major going on almost as 
quick as if he was conjuring sets out all the articles he names. 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 387 

and says " Three saucepans, an Italian iron, a hand-bell, a toasting- 
fork, a nutmeg-grater, four potlids, a spice-box, two egg-cups, and 
a chopping-board — how many?" and when that Mite instantly 
cries " Tifteen, tut down tive and carry ler 'toppin-board " and then 
claps his hands draws up his legs and dances on his chair. 

My dear with the same astonishing ease and correctness him and 
the Major added up the tables chairs and sofy, the picters fenders 
and fire-irons their ownselves me and the cat and the eyes in Miss 
Wozenham's head, and whenever the sum was done Young Roses 
and Diamonds claps his hands and draws up his legs and dances 
on his chair. 

The pride of the Major! {^^ Here's a mind Ma'am!" he says 
to me behind his hand.) 

Then he says aloud, " We now come to the the next elementary 
rule, — which is called — " 

" Umtraction ! " cries Jemmy. 

"Right," says the Major. "We have here a toasting-fork, a 
potato in its natural state, two potlids, one egg-cup, a wooden spoon, 
and two skewers, from which it is necessary for commercial pur- 
poses to subtract a sprat-gridiron, a small pickle-jar, two lemons, 
one pepper-castor, a blackbeetle-trap, and a knob of the dresser- 
drawer — what remains 1 " 

" Toatin-fork ! " cries Jemmy. 

" In numbers how many ? " says the Major. 

" One ! " cries Jemmy. 

{^^ Here's a boy, Ma'am!" says the Major to me behind his 
hand.) 

Then the Major goes on : 

"We now approach the next elementary rule, — which is 
entitled — " 

" Tickleication " cries Jemmy. 

" Correct " says the Major. 

But my dear to relate to you in detail the way in which they 
multiplied fourteen sticks of firewood by two bits of ginger and a 
larding-needle, or divided pretty well everything else there was on 
the table by the heater of the Italian iron and a chamber candle- 
stick, and got a lemon over, would make my head spin round and 
round and round as it did at the time. So I says " if you'll excuse 
my addressing the chair Professor Jackman I think the period of 
the lecture has now arrived when it becomes necessary that I 
should take a good hug of this young scholar," Upon which 
Jemmy calls out from his station on the chair, " Gran oo open oor 
arms and me'll make a 'pring into 'em." So I opened my arms to 
him as I had opened my sorrowful heart when his poor young mother 



388 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

lay a dying, and he had his jump and we had a good long hug to- 
gether and the Major prouder than any peacock says to me behind 
his hand, " You need not let him know it Madam " (which I cer- 
tainly need not for the Major was quite audible) " but he is a boy ! " 

In this way Jemmy grew and grew and went to day-school and 
continued under the Major too, and in summer we were as hapjjy 
as the days were long, and in winter we were as happy as the days 
were short and there seemed to rest a Blessing on the Lodgings for 
they as good as Let themselves and would have done it if there 
had been twice the accommodation, when sore and hard against my 
will I one day says to the Major : 

" Major you know what I am going to break to you. Our boy 
must go to boarding-school." 

It was a sad sight to see the Major's countenance drop, and I 
pitied the good soul with all my heart. 

" Yes Major " I says, " though he is as popular with the Lodg- 
ers as you are yourself and though he is to you and me what only 
you and me know, still it is in the course of things and Life is 
made of partings and we must part with our Pet." 

Bold as I spoke, I saw two Majors and half-a-dozen fire-places, and 
when the poor Major put one of his neat bright-varnished boots upon 
the fender and his elbow on his knee and his head upon his hand 
and rocked himself a little to and fro, I was dreadfully cut up. 

"But" says I clearing my throat "you have so well prepared 
him Major — he has had such a Tutor in you — that he will have 
none of the first drudgery to go through. And he is so clever 
besides that he'll soon make his way to the front rank." 

"He is a boy" says the Major — having snified — "that has 
not his like on the face of the earth." 

" True as you say Major, and it is not for us merely for our own 
sakes to do anything to keep him back from being a credit and an 
ornament wherever he goes and perhaps even rising to be a great 
man, is it Major ? He will have all my little savings when my 
work is done (being all the world to me) and we must try to make 
him a wise man and a good man, mustn't we Major?" 

" Madam " says the Major rising " Jemmy Jackman is becoming 
an older file than I was aware of, and you put him to shame. You 
are thoroughly right Madam. You are simply and undeniably 
right. — And if you'll excuse me, I'll take a walk." 

So the Major being gone out and Jemmy being at home, I got 
the child into my little room here and I stood him by my chair 
and I took his mother's own curls in my hand and I spoke to him 
loving and serious. And when I had reminded the darling how 
that he was now in his tenth year and when I had said to him 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 389 

about his getting on in life pretty much what I had said to the 
Major I broke to him how that we must have this same parting, 
lUid there I was forced to stop for there I saw of a sudden the 
well-remembered lip with its tremble, and it so brought back that 
time ! But with the spirit that was in him he controlled it soon 
and he says gravely nodding through his tears, " I understand 
Gran — I know it must be. Gran — go on Gran, don't be afraid of 
me.'' And when I had said all that ever I could think of, he 
turned his bright steady face to mine and he says just a little 
broken here and there " You shall see Gran that I can be a man 
and that I can do anything that is grateful and loving to you — 
and if I don't grow up to be what you would like to have me — I 
hope it will be — because I shall die." And with that he sat 
down by me and I went on to tell him of the school of which I 
had excellent recommendations and where it was and how many 
scholars and what games they played as I had heard and what 
length of holidays, to all of which he listened bright and clear. 
And so it came that at last he says " And now dear Gran let me 
kneel down here where I have been used to say my prayers and let 
me fold my face for just a minute in your gown and let me cry, 
for you have been more than father — more than mother — more 
than brothers sisters friends — to me ! " And so he did cry and I 
too and we were both much the better for it. 

From that time forth he was true to his word and ever blithe 
and ready, and even when me and the Major took him down into 
Lincolnshire he was far the gayest of the party though for sure and 
certain he might easily have been that, but he really was and put 
life into us only when it came to the last Good bye, he says with a 
wistful look, "You wouldn't have me not really sorry would you 
Gran ? " and when I says " no dear. Lord forbid ! " he says " I am 
glad of that ! " and ran in out of sight. 

But now that the child was gone out of the Lodgings the Major 
fell into a regularly moping state. It was taken notice of by all 
the Lodgers that the Major moped. He hadn't even the same air 
of being rather tall that he used to have, and if he varnished his 
boots with a single gleam of interest it was as much as he did. 

One evening the Major came into my little room to take a cup 
of tea and a morsel of buttered toast and to read Jemmy's newest 
letter which had arrived that afternoon (by the very same postman 
more than middle-aged upon the Beat now), and the letter raising 
him up a little I says to the Major : 

" Major you mustn't get into a moping way." 

The Major shook his head. "Jemmy Jackman Madam," he 
says with a deep sigh, "is an older file than I thought him." 



390 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

" Moping is not the way to grow younger Major." 

"My dear Madam," says the Major, "is there any way of grow- 
ing younger ? " 

Feeling that the Major was getting rather the best of that point 
I made a diversion to another. 

" Thirteen years ! Thir-teen years ! Many Lodgers have come 
and gone, in the thirteen years that you have lived in the parlours 
Major." 

" Hah ! " says the Major warming. " Many Madam, many." 

"And I should say you have been familiar with them all?" 

" As a rule (with its exceptions like all rules) my dear Madam " 
says the Major, " they have honoured me with their acquaintance, 
and not unfrequently with their confidence." 

Watching the Major as he drooped his white head and stroked 
his black mustachios and moped again, a thought which I think 
must have been going about looking for an owner somewhere dropped 
into my old noddle if you will excuse the expression. 

"The walls of my Lodgings" I says in a casual way — for my 
dear it is of no use going straight at a man who mopes — " might 
have something to tell if they could tell it." 

The Major neither moved nor said anything but I saw he was 
attending with his shoulders my dear — attending with his shoulders 
to what I said. In fact I saw that his shoulders were struck by it. 

" The dear boy was always fond of story-books " I went on, like 
as if I was talking to myself " I am sure this house — his own 
home — might write a story or two for his reading one day or 
another." 

The Major's shoulders gave a dip and a curve and his head came 
up in his shirt-collar. The Major's head came up in his shirt- 
collar as I hadn't seen it come up since Jemmy went to school. 

" It is unquestionable that in intervals of cribbage and a friendly 
rubber, my dear Madam," says the Major, "and also over what 
used to be called in my young times — in the salad days of Jemmy 
Jackman — the social glass, I have exchanged many a reminiscence 
with your Lodgers." 

My remark was — I confess I made it with the deepest and 
artfullest of intentions — " I wish our dear boy had heard them ! " 

"Are you serious Madam?" asks the Major starting and turning 
full round. 

"Why not Major?" 

" Madam " says the Major, turning up one of his cuflfs, " they 
shall be written for him." 

" Ah ! Now you speak " I says giving my hands a pleased clap. 
" Now you are in a way out of moping Major ! " 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 391 

" Between this and ray holidays — I mean the dear boy's " says 
the Major turning up his other cuff, " a good deal may be done 
towards it." 

"Major you are a clever man and you have seen much and not a 
doubt of it." 

" I'll begin," says the Major looking as tall as ever he did, " to- 
morrow." 

My dear the Major was another man in three days and he was 
himself again in a week and he wrote and wrote and wrote with his 
pen scratching like rats behind the wainscot, and whether he had 
many grounds to go upon or whether he did at all romance I cannot 
tell you, but what he has written is in the left-hand glass closet of 
the little bookcase close behind you. 



Chapter II. 

HOW THE PARLOURS ADDED A FEW WORDS. 

I HAVE the honour of presenting myself by the name of Jackman. 
I esteem it a proud privilege to go down to posterity through the 
instrumentality of the most remarkable boy that ever lived, — by 
the name of Jemmy Jackman Lirriper, — and of my most worthy 
and most highly respected friend, Mrs. Emma Lirriper, of Eighty- 
one, Norfolk-street, Strand, in the County of Middlesex, in the 
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. 

It is not for me to express the rapture with which we received 
that dear and eminently remarkable boy, on the occurrence of his 
first Christmas holidays. Suffice it to observe that when he came 
flying into the house with two splendid prizes (Arithmetic, and 
Exemplary Conduct), Mrs. Lirriper and myself embraced with 
emotion, and instantly took him to the Play, where we were all 
three admirably entertained. 

Nor is it to render homage to the virtues of the best of her good 
and honoured sex — whom, in deference to her unassuming worth, 
I will only here designate by the initials E. L. — that I add this 
record to the bundle of papers with which our, in a most dis- 
tinguished degree, remarkable boy has expressed himself delighted, 
before reconsigning the same to the left-hand glass closet of Mrs. 
Lirriper's little bookcase. 

Neither is it to obtrude the name of the old original superannuated 
obscure Jemmy Jackman, once (to his degradation) of Wozenham's, 
long (to his elevation) of Lirriper's. If I could be consciously 
guilty of that piece of bad taste, it would indeed be a work of 



392 MRS. LIRRIPER'S. LODGINGS. 

supererogation, now that the name is borne by Jemmy Jackiman I 

LiRRIPER. 

No, I take up my humble pen to register a little record of our 
strikingly remarkable boy, which my poor capacity regards as pre- 
senting a pleasant little picture of the dear boy's mind. The picture 
may be interesting to himself when he is a man. 

Our first reunited Christmas-day was the most delightful one we 
have ever passed together. Jemmy was never silent for five min- 
utes, except in church-time. He talked as we sat by the fire, he 
talked when we were out walking, he talked as we sat by the fire 
again, he talked incessantly at dinner, though he made a dinner 
almost as remarkable as himself. It was the spring of happiness 
in his fresh young heart flowing and flowing, and it fertilised (if I 
may be allowed so bold a figure) my much-esteemed friend, and J. J. 
the present writer. 

There were only we three. We dined in my esteemed friend's 
little room, and our entertainment was perfect. But everything in 
the establishment is, in neatness, order, and comfort, always per- 
fect. After dinner our boy slipped away to his old stool at my es- 
teemed friend's knee, and there, with his hot chestnuts and his glass 
of brown sherry (really, a most excellent wine !) on a chair for a 
table, his face outshone the apples in the dish. 

We talked of these jottings of mine, which Jemmy had read 
through and through by that time ; and so it came about that my 
esteemed friend remarked, as she sat smoothing Jemmy's curls : 

"And as you belong to the house too, Jemmy, — and so much 
more than the Lodgers, having been born in it, — why, your story 
ought to be added to the rest, I think, one of these days." 

Jemmy's eyes sparkled at this, and he said, " So / think. Gran." 

Then he sat looking at the fire, and then he began to laugh in a 
sort of confidence with the fire, and then he said, folding his arms 
across my esteemed friend's lap, and raising his bright face to hers : 
" Would you like to hear a boy's story, Gran ? " 

" Of all things," rephed my esteemed friend. J 

" Would you, godfather ? " 1 

" Of all things," I too replied. 

"Well, then," said Jemmy, "I'll tell you one." 

Here our indisputably remarkable boy gave himself a hug, and 
laughed again, musically, at the idea of his coming out in that new 
line. Then he once more took the fire into the same sort of confi- 
dence as before, and began : 

" Once upon a time. When pigs drank wine. And monkeys chewed 
tobaccer, 'Twas neither in your time nor mine. But that's no 
macker — " 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 393 

"Bless the child!" cried my esteemed friend, "what's amiss 
with his brain ? " 

" It's poetry, Gran," returned Jemmy, shouting with laughter. 
" We always begin stories that way at school." 

" Gave me quite a turn. Major," said my esteemed friend, fan- 
ning herself with a plate. " Thought he was light-headed ! " 

" In those remarkable times, Gran and godfather, there was once 
a boy, — not me, you know." 

" No, no," says my respected friend, " not you. Not him, Major, 
you understand 1 " 

" No, no," says I. 

"And he went to school in Rutlandshire — " 

" Why not Lincolnshire ? " says my respected friend. 

" Why not, you dear old Gran ? Because / go to school in Lin- 
colnshire, don't I ? " 

"Ah, to be sure!" says my respected friend. "And it's not 
Jemmy, you understand, Major?" 

" No, no," says I. 

" Well ! " our boy proceeded, hugging himself comfortably, and 
laughing merrily (again in confidence with the fire) , before he again 
looked up in Mrs. Lirriper's face, " and so he was tremendously in 
love with his schoolmaster's daughter, and she was the most beau- 
tiful creature that ever was seen, and she had brown eyes, and she 
had brown hair all curling beautifully, and she had a delicious 
voice, and she was delicious altogether, and her name was Sera- 
phina." 

"What's the name of i/our schoolmaster's daughter, Jemmy?" 
asks my respected friend. 

" Polly ! " replied Jemmy, pointing his forefinger at her. " There 
now ! Caught you ! Ha, ha, ha ! " 

When he and my respected friend had had a laugh and a hug 
together, our admittedly remarkable boy resumed with a great 
relish : 

" Well ! And so he loved her. And so he thought about her, 
and dreamed about her, and made her presents of oranges and nuts, 
and would have made her presents of pearls and diamonds if he 
could have afforded it out of his pocket-money, but he couldn't. 
And so her father — 0, he was a Tartar ! Keeping the boys up 
to the mark, holding examinations once a month, lecturing upon 
all sorts of subjects at all sorts of times, and knowing everything 
in the world out of book. And so this boy — " 

" Had he any name ? " asks my respected friend. 

" No, he hadn't. Gran. Ha, ha ! There now ! Caught you 
again ! " 



394 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS. 

After this, they had another laugh and another hug, and then 
our boy went on. 

" Well ! And so this boy, he had a friend about as old as him- 
self at the same school, and his name (for He had a name, as it 
happened) was — let me remember — was Bobbo." 

" Not Bob," says my respected friend. 

" Of course not," says Jemmy. " What made you think it was. 
Gran ? Well ! And so this friend was the cleverest and bravest 
and best-looking and most generous of all the friends that ever 
were, and so he was in love with Seraphina's sister, and so Sera- 
phina's sister was in love with him, and so they all grew up." 

" Bless us ! " says my respected friend. " They were very sud- 
den about it." 

"So they all grew up," our boy repeated, laughing heartily, " and 
Bobbo and this boy went away together on horseback to seek their 
fortunes, and they partly got their horses by favour, and partly in 
a bargain ; that is to say, they had saved up between them seven 
and fourpence, and the two horses, being Arabs, were worth more, 
only the man said he would take that, to favour them. Well ! 
And so they made their fortunes and came prancing back to the 
school, with their pockets full of gold, enough to last for ever. And so 
they rang at the parents' and visitors' bell (not the back gate), and 
when the bell was answered they proclaimed ' The same as if it was 
scarlet fever ! Every boy goes home for an indefinite period ! ' 
And then there was great hurrahing, and then they kissed Sera- 
phina and her sister, — each his own love, and not the other's on 
any account, — and then they ordered the Tartar into instant con- 
finement." 

" Poor man ! " said my respected friend. 

" Into instant confinement. Gran," repeated Jemmy, trying to 
look severe and roaring with laughter ; " and he was to have noth- 
ing to eat but the boys' dinners, and was to drink half a cask of 
their beer every day. And so then the preparations were made for 
the two weddings, and there were hampers, and potted things, and 
sweet things, and nuts, and postage-stamps, and all manner of 
things. And so they were so jolly, that they let the Tartar out, 
and he was jolly too." 

"I am glad they let him out," says my respected friend, "be- 
cause he had only done his duty." 

" 0, but hadn't he overdone it, though ! " cried Jemmy. "Well ! 
And so then this boy mounted his horse, with his bride in his arms, 
and cantered away, and cantered on and on till he came to a certain 
place where he had a certain Gran and a certain godfather, — not 
you two, you know." 



MRS. LIRRlPEll'S LODGINGS. 395 

"No, no," we both said. 

"And there he was received with great rejoicings, and he fiUed 
the cupboard and the bookcase with gold, and he showered it out 
on his Gran and his godfather because they were the two kindest 
and dearest people that ever lived in this world. And so while 
they were sitting up to their knees in gold, a knocking was heard 
at the street door, and who should it be but Bobbo, also on horse- 
back with his bride m his arms, and what had he come to say but 
that he would take (at double rent) all the Lodgings for ever that 
were not wanted by this boy and this Gran and this godfather and 
that they would all live together, and all be happy ! And so thev 
were, and so it never ended ! " 

"And was there no quarrelling?" asked my respected friend as 
Jemmy sat upon her lap and hugged her. 

" No ! Nobody ever quarrelled." 

" And did the money never melt away ? " 

" No ! Nobody could ever spend it all." 

" And did none of them ever grow older ? " 

" No ! Nobody ever grew older after that." 

" And did none of them ever die ? " 

" 0, no, no, no. Gran ! " exclaimed our dear boy, laying his 
cheek upon her breast, and drawing her closer to him. " Nobody 
ever died." 

"Ah, Major, Major ! " says my respected friend, smiling benignly 
upon me, "this beats our stories. Let us end with the Boy's 
story. Major, for the Boy's story is the best that is ever told ! " 

In submission to which request on the part of the best of women, 
I have here noted it down as faithfully as my best abilities, coupled 
with my best intentions, would admit, subscribing it with my 
name, 

J. JACKMAN. 
The Parloues. 
Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings. 



396 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

IN TWO CHAPTERS. 

Chapter I. 

MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES HOW SHE WENT ON, AND WENT OVER. 

Ah ! It's pleasant to drop into my own easy-chair my dear though 
a little palpitating what with trotting up-stairs and what with 
trotting down, and why kitchen stairs should all be corner stairs 
is for the builders to justify though I do not think they fully 
understand their trade and never did, else why the sameness and 
why not more conveniences and fewer draughts and likewise mak- 
ing a practice of laying the plaster on too thick I am well con- 
vinced which holds the damp, and as to chimney-pots putting them 
on by guess-work like hats at a party and no more knowing what 
their effect will be upon the smoke bless you than I do if so much, 
except that it will mostly be either to send it down your throat in 
a straight form or give it a twist before it goes there. And what 
I says speaking as I find of those new metal chimneys all manner 
of shapes (there's a row of 'em at Miss Wozenham's lodging-house 
lower down on the other side of the way) is that they only work 
your smoke into artificial patterns for you before you swallow it and 
that I'd quite as soon swallow mine plain, the flavour being the 
same, not to mention the conceit of putting up signs on the top of 
your house to show the forms in which you take your smoke into 
your inside. 

Being here before your eyes my dear in my own easy-chair in my 
own quiet room in my own Lodging-House Number Eighty-one 
Norfolk-street Strand London situated midway between the city 
and Saint James's — if anything is where it used to be with these 
hotels calling themselves Limited but called unlimited by Major 
Jackman rising up eveiywhere and rising up into flagstaff's where 
they can't go any higher, but my mind of those monsters is give 
me a landlord's or landlady's wholesome face when I come off" a 
journey and not a brass plate with an electrified number clicking 
out of it which it's not in nature can be glad to see me and to which I 
don't want to be hoisted like molasses at the Docks and left there 
telegraphing for help with the most ingenious instruments but quite 
in vain — being here my dear I have no call to mention that I am 
still in the Lodgings as a business hoping to die in the same and if 
agreeable to the clergy partly read over at Saint Clement's Danes 



398 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

and concluded in Hatfield churchyard when lying once again by my 
poor Lirriper ashes to ashes and dust to dust. 

Neither should I tell you any news my dear in telling you that 
the Major is still a fixture in the Parlours quite as much so as the 
roof of the house, and that Jemmy is of boys the best and brightest 
and has ever had kept from him the cruel story of his poor pretty 
young mother Mrs. Edson being deserted in the second floor and 
dying in my arms, fully belie\ing that I am his born Gran and him 
an orphan, though what with engineering since he took a taste for it 
and him and the Major making Locomotives out of parasols broken 
iron pots and cotton-reels and them absolutely a getting ofi" the line 
and falling over the table and injuring the passengers almost equal 
to the originals it really is quite wonderful. And when I says to the 
Major, " Major can't you by any means give us a communication with 
the guard % " the Major says quite huffy, " No madam it's not to be 
done," and when I says " Why not ? " the Major says, " That is be- 
tween us who are in the Railway Interest madam and our friend the 
Right Honourable Vice-President of the Board of Trade " and if you'll 
believe me my dear the Major wrote to Jemmy at school to consult 
him on the answer I should have before I could get even that 
amount of unsatisfactoriness out of the man, the reason being that 
when we first began with the little model and the working sig- 
nals beautiful and perfect (being in general as wrong as the real) 
and when I says laughing " What appointment am I to hold in this 
undertaking gentlemen % " Jemmy hugs me round the neck and tells 
me dancing, " You shall be the Public Gran " and consequently 
they put upon me just as much as ever they like and I sit a growl- 
ing in my easy-chair. 

My dear whether it is that a grown man as clever as the Major 
cannot give half his heart and mind to anything — even a plaything 
— but must get into right down earnest with it, whether it is so 
or whether it is not so I do not undertake to say, but Jemmy is 
far outdone by the serious and believing ways of the Major in the 
management of the United Grand Junction Lirriper and Jackman 
Great Norfolk Parlour Line, "For" says my Jemmy with the 
sparkling eyes when it was christened, " we must have a whole 
mouthful of name Gran or our dear old Public " and there the 
young rogue kissed me, "won't stump up." So the Pubhc took 
the shares — ten at ninepence, and immediately when that was 
spent twelve Preference at one and sixpence — and they were all 
signed by Jemmy and countersigned by the Major, and between 
ourselves much better worth the money than some shares I have 
paid for in my time. In the same holidays the line was made and 
worked and opened and ran excursions and had collisions and burst 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 399 

its boilers and all sorts of accidents and offences all most regular correct 
and pretty. The sense of responsibility entertained by the Major as 
a military style of station-master my dear starting the down train 
behind time and ringing one of those little bells that you buy with 
the little coal-scuttles off the tray round the man's neck in the street 
did him honour, but noticing the Major of a night when he is writ- 
ing out his monthly report to Jemmy at school of the state of the 
Rolling Stock and the Permanent Way and all the rest of it (the 
whole kept upon the Major's sideboard and dusted with his own 
hands every morning before varnishing his bocJts) I notice him as 
full of thought and care as full can be and frowning in a fearful 
manner, but indeed the Major does nothing by halves as witness his 
great delight in going out surveying with Jemmy when he has 
Jemmy to go with, canying a chain and a measuring-tape and driving 
I don't know what improvements right through Westminster Abbey 
and fully believed in the streets to be knocking everything upside 
down by Act of Parliament. As please Heaven will come to pass 
when Jemmy takes to that as a profession ! 

Mentioning my poor Lirriper brings into my head his own young- 
est brother the Doctor though Doctor of what I am sure it would 
be hard to say unless Liquor, for neither Physic nor Music nor yet 
Law does Joshua Lirriper know a morsel of except continually 
being summoned to the County Court and having orders made upon 
him which he runs away from, and once was taken in the passage 
of this very house with an umbrella up and the Major's hat on, 
giving his name with the door-mat round him as Sir Johnson Jones, 
K.C.B. in spectacles residing at the Horse Guards. On which 
occasion he had got into the house not a minute before, through 
the girl letting him on the mat when he sent in a piece of paper 
twisted more like one of those spills for lighting candles than a 
note, offering me the choice between thirty shillings in hand and 
his brains on the premises marked immediate and waiting for an 
answer. My dear it gave me such a dreadful turn to think of the 
brains of my poor dear Lirriper's own flesh and blood flying about 
the new oilcloth however unworthy to be so assisted, that I w^ent 
out of my room here to ask him what he would take once for all 
not to do it for life when I found him in the custody of two gentle- 
men that I should have judged to be in the feather-bed trade if 
they had not announced the law, so fluffy were their personal 
appearance. " Bring your chains, sir," says Joshua to the littlest 
of the two in the biggest hat, "rivet on my fetters!" Imagine 
my feelings when I pictered him clanking up Norfolk-street in 
irons and Miss Wozenham looking out of window ! " Gentlemen," 
I says all of a tremble and ready to drop " please to bring him 



400 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

into Major Jackman's apartments." So they brought him into 
the Parlours, and when the Major spies his own curly-brimmed hat 
on him which Joshua Lirriper had whipped off its peg in the pas- 
sage for a military disguise he goes into such a tearing passion that 
he tips it off his head with his hand and kicks it up to the ceiling 
with his foot where it grazed long afterwards. " Major " I says 
"be cool and advise me what to do with Joshua my dead and gone 
Lirriper's own youngest brother." " Madam " says the Major " my 
advice is that you board and lodge him in a Powder Mill, with a 
handsome gratuity to the proprietor when exploded." "Major" 
I says " as a Christian you cannot mean your words." " Madam " 
says the Major " by the Lord I do ! " and indeed the Major besides 
being with all his merits a very passionate man for his size had a 
bad opinion of Joshua on account of former troubles even unat- 
tended by liberties taken with his apparel. When Joshua Lirri- 
per hears this conversation betwixt us he turns upon the littlest 
one with the biggest hat and says " Come sir ! Remove me to my 
vile dungeon. Where is my mouldy straw?" My dear at the 
picter of him rising in my mind dressed almost entirely in padlocks 
like Baron Trenck in Jemmy's book I was so overcome that I burst 
into tears and I says to the Major, " Major take my keys and settle 
with these gentlemen or I shall never know a happy minute more," 
which was done several times both before and since, but still I must 
remember that Joshua Lirriper has his good feelings and shows 
them in being always so troubled in his mind when he cannot wear 
mourning for his brother. Many a long year have I left off my 
widow's mourning not being wishful to intrude, but the tender 
point in Joshua that I cannot help a little yielding to is when he 
writes " One single sovereign would enable me to wear a decent suit 
of mourning for my much-loved brother. I vowed at the time of 
his lamented death that I would ever wear sables in memory of 
him but Alas how short-sighted is man. How keep that vow when 
penniless ! " It says a good deal for the strength of his feelings 
that he couldn't have been seven year old when my poor Lirriper 
died and to have kept to it ever since is highly creditable. But 
we know there's good in all of us, — if we only knew where it was 
in some of us, — and though it was far from delicate in Joshua to 
work upon the dear child's feelings when first sent to school and 
write down into Lincolnshire for his pocket-money by return of 
post and got it, still he is my poor Lirriper's own youngest brother 
and mightn't have meant not paying his bill at the Salisbury Arms 
when his affection took him down to stay a fortnight at Hatfield 
churchyard and might have meant to keep sober but for bad com- 
pany. Consequently if the Major had played on him with the 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 401 

garden-engine which he got privately into his room without my 
knowing of it, I think that much as I should have regretted it 
there would have been words betwixt the Major and me. There- 
fore my dear though he played on Mr. Buffle by mistake being hot 
in his head, and though it might have been misrepresented down at 
Wozenham's into not being ready for Mr. Buffle in other respects 
he being the Assessed Taxes, still I do not so much regret it as 
perhaps I ought. And whether Joshua Lirriper will yet do well 
in life I cannot say. But I did hear of his coming out at a Private 
Theatre in the character of a Bandit without receiving any offers 
afterwards from the regular managers. 

Mentioning Mr. Buffle gives an instance of there being good in 
persons where good is not expected, for it cannot be denied that 
Mr. Buffle's manners when engaged in his business were not agree- 
able. To collect is one thing, and to look about as if suspicious of 
the goods being gradually removing in the dead of the night by a 
back door is another, over taxing you have no control but suspect- 
ing is voluntary. Allowances too must ever be made for a gentle- 
man of the Major's warmth not relishing being spoke to with a pen 
in the mouth, and while I do not know that it is more irritable to 
my own feelings to have a low-crowned hat with a broad brim 
kept on in doors than any other hat still I can appreciate the 
Major's, besides which without bearing malice or vengeance the 
Major is a man that scores up arrears as his habit always was with 
Joshua Lirriper. So at last my dear the Major lay in wait for 
Mr. Buffle and it worrited me a good deal. Mr. Buffle gives his 
rap of two sharp knocks one day and the Major bounces to the 
door, "Collector has called for two quarters' Assessed Taxes" 
says Mr. Buffle. " They are ready for him " says the Major and 
brings him in here. But on the way Mr. Buffle looks about him 
in his usual suspicious manner and the Major fires and asks him 
" Do you see a Ghost sir ? " " No sir " says Mr. Buffle. " Because I 
have before noticed you " says the Major "apparently looking for a 
spectre very hard beneath the roof of my respected friend. When 
you find that supernatural agent, be so good as point him out sir." 
Mr. Buffle stares at the Major and then nods at me. " Mrs. 
Lirriper sir " says the Major going off into a perfect steam and 
introducing me with his hand. " Pleasure of knowing her " says 
Mr. Buffle. "A — hum! — Jemmy Jackman sir!" says the 
Major introducing himself. " Honour of knowing you by sight " 
says Mr. Buffle. "Jemmy Jackman sir" says the Major wagging 
his head sideways in a sort of obstinate fury " presents to you his 
esteemed friend that lady Mrs. Emma Lirriper of Eighty-one Nor- 
folk-street Strand London in the County of Middlesex in the United 

2i> 



402 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Upon which occasion sir," 
says the Major, " Jemmy Jackman takes your hat off." Mr. Buffle 
looks at his hat where the Major drops it on the floor, and he picks 
it up and puts it on again. " Sir " says the Major veiy red and 
looking him full in the face " there are two quarters of the Gallan- 
try Taxes due and the Collector has called." Upon which if you 
can believe my words my dear the Major drops Mr. Buffle's hat off 
again. " This — " Mr. Buffle begins very angiy with his pen in 
his mouth, when the Major steaming more and more says "Take 
your bit out sir ! Or by the whole infernal system of Taxation of 
this country and every individual figure in the National Debt, I'll 
get upon your back and ride you like a horse ! " which it's my be- 
lief he would have done and even actually jerking his neat little 
legs ready for a spring as it was. " This," says Mr. Buffle with- 
out his pen "is an assault and I'll have the law of you." "Sir" 
replies the Major "if you are a man of honour, your Collector of 
whatever may be due on the Honourable Assessment by applying 
to Major Jackman at the Parlours Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings, may 
obtain what he wants in full at any moment." 

When the Major glared at Mr. Buffle vnth those meaning words 
my dear I literally gasped for a teaspoonful of salvolatile in a 
wineglass of water, and I says " Pray let it go no farther gentlemen 
I beg and beseech of you ! " But the Major could be got to do 
nothing else but snort long after Mr. Buffle was gone, and the 
effect it had upon my whole mass of blood when on the next day 
of Mr. Buffle's rounds the Major spruced himself up and went 
humming a tune up and down the street with one eye almost oblit- 
erated by his hat there are not expressions in Johnson's Diction- 
ary to state. But I safely put the street door on the jar and got 
behind the Major's blinds with my shawl on and my mind made 
up the moment I saw danger to rush out screeching till my voice 
failed me and catch the Major round the neck till my strength 
went and have all parties bound. I had not been behind the 
blinds a quarter of an hour when I saw Mr. Buffle approaching 
with his Collecting-books in his hand. The Major likewise saw 
him approaching and hummed louder and himself approached. 
They met before the Airy railings. The Major takes off his hat 
at arm's length and says "Mr. Buffle I believe?" Mr. Buffle 
takes off his hat at arm's length and says " That is my name sir." 
Says the Major "Have you any commands for me, Mr. Buffle?" 
Says Mr. Buffle " Not any sir." Then my dear both of 'em bowed 
very low and haughty and parted, and whenever Mr. Buffle made 
his rounds in future him and the Major always met and bowed 
before the Airy railings, putting me much in mind of Hamlet and 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 403 

the other gentleman in mourning before killing one another, though 
I could have wislied the other gentleman had done it fairer and 
even if less polite no poison. 

Mr. Buffle's family were not liked in this neighbourhood, for 
when you are a householder my dear you'll find it does not come by 
nature to like the Assessed, and it was considered besides that a 
one-horse pheayton ought not to have elevated Mrs. Buffle to that 
height especially when purloined from the Taxes which I myself 
did consider uncharitable. But they Avere not liked and there 
was that domestic unhappiness in the family in consequence of their 
both being very hard with Miss Buffle and one another on account 
of Miss Buffle's favouring Mr. Buffle's articled young gentleman, 
that it ivas whispered that Miss Buffle would go either into a con- 
sumption or a convent she being so very thin and oft' her appetite 
and two close-shaved gentlemen with white bands round their necks 
peeping round the corner whenever she went out in waistcoats re- 
sembling black pinafores. So things stood towards Mr. Buffle when 
one night I was w^oke by a frightful noise and a smell of burning, 
and going to my bedroom window saw the whole street in a glow. 
Fortunately we had two sets empty just then and before I could 
hurry on some clothes I heard the Major hammering at the attics' 
doors and calling out " Dress yourselves ! — Fire ! Don't be fright- 
ened ! — Fire ! Collect your presence of mind ! — Fire ! All right 
— Fire ! " most tremenjously. As I opened my bedroom door the 
Major came tumbling in over himself and me, and caught me in his 
arms. "Major" I says breathless "where is it?" "I don't know 
dearest madam " says the Major — " Fire ! Jemmy Jackman will 
defend you to the last drop of his blood — Fire ! If the dear boy 
was at home what a treat this would be for him — Fire ! " and al- 
together very collected and bold except that he couldn't say a single 
sentence without shaking me to the very centre with roaring Fire. 
We ran down to the drawing-room and put our heads out of win- 
dow, and the Major calls to an unfeeling young monkey, scamper- 
ing by be joyful and ready to split " Where is it ? — Fire ! " The 
monkey answers without stopping " here's a lark ! Old Buffle's 
been setting his house alight to prevent its being found out that he 
boned the Taxes. Hurrah ! Fire ! " And then the sparks came 
flying up and the smoke came pouring down and the crackling of 
flames and spatting of water and banging of engines and hacking 
of axes and breaking of glass and knocking at doors and the shout- 
ing and crying and hurrying and the heat and altogether gave me 
a dreadful palpitation. " Don't be frightened dearest madam," 
says the Major, " — Fire! There's nothing to be alarmed at — 
Fire ! Don't open the street door till I come back — Fire ! I'll 



404 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

go and see if I can be of any service — Fire ! You're quite com- 
posed and comfortable an't you 1 — Fire, Fire, Fire ! " It was in 
vain for me to hold the man and tell him he'd be galloped to death 
by the engines — pumped to death by his over-exertions — wet- 
feeted to death by the slop and mess — flattened to death when the 
roofs fell in — his spirit was up and he went scampering off after 
the young monkey with all the breath he had and none to spare, 
and me and the girls huddled together at the parlour windows 
looking at the dreadful flames above the houses over the way, Mr. 
Buffle's being round the corner. Presently what should we see but 
some people running down the street straight to our door, and then 
the Major directing operations in the busiest way, and then some 
more people and then — carried in a chair similar to Guy Fawkes 
— Mr. Buffle in a blanket ! 

My dear the Major has Mr. Buffle brought up our steps and 
whisked into the parlour and carted out on the sofy, and then he 
and all the rest of them without so much as a word burst away 
again full speed, leaving the impression of a vision except for Mr. 
Buffle awful in his blanket with his eyes a rolling. In a twinkling 
they all burst back again with Mrs. Buffle in another blanket, which 
whisked in and carted out on the sofy they all burst off again and 
all burst back again with Miss Buffle in another blanket, which 
again whisked in and carted out they all burst off again and all burst 
back again with Mr. Buffle's articled young gentleman in another 
blanket — him a holding round the necks of two men carrying him 
by the legs, similar to the picter of the disgraceful creetur who has 
lost the fight (but where the chair I do not know) and his hair having 
the appearance of newly played upon. When all four of a row, the 
Major rubs his hands and whispers me with what little hoarseness 
he can get together, " If our dear remarkable boy was only at home 
what a delightful treat this would be for him ! " 

My dear we made them some hot tea and toast and some hot 
brandy-and-water with a little comfortable nutmeg in it, and at 
first they were scared and low in their spirits but being fully in- 
sured got sociable. And the first use Mr. Buffle made of his 
tongue was to call the Major his Preserver and his best of friends 
and to say " My for ever dearest sir let me make you known to 
Mrs. Buffle " which also addressed him as her Preserver and her 
best of friends and was fully as cordial as the blanket would admit 
of. Also Miss Buffle. The articled young gentleman's head was 
a little light and he sat a moaning "Robina is reduced to cinders, 
Robina is reduced to cinders ! " Which went more to the heart on 
account of his having got wrapped in his blanket as if he was look- 
ing out of a violinceller case, until Mr. Buffle says "Robina speak 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 405 

to him ! " Miss Buffle says " Dear George ! " and but for the 
Major's pouring down brandy-and-water on the instant which caused 
a catching in his throat owing to the nutmeg and a violent fit of 
coughing it might have proved too much for his strength. When 
the articled young gentleman got the better of it Mr. Buffle leaned 
up against Mrs. Buffle being two bundles, a little while in confi- 
dence, and then says with tears in his eyes which the Major notic- 
ing wiped, "We have not been an united family, let us after this 
danger become so, take her George." The young gentleman could 
not put his arm out far to do it, but his spoken expressions were 
very beautiful though of a wandering class. And I do not know 
that I ever had a much pleasanter meal than the breakfast we took 
together after we had all dozed, when Miss Buffle made tea very 
sweetly in quite the Roman style as depicted formerly at Covent 
Garden Theatre and when the whole family was most agreeable, 
as they have ever proved since that night when the Major stood at 
the foot of the Fire-Escape and claimed them as they came down 
— the young gentleman head-foremost, which accounts. And 
though I do not say that we should be less liable to think ill of 
one another if strictly limited to blankets, still I do say that we 
might most of us come to a better understanding if we kept one 
another less at a distance. 

Why there's Wozenham's lower down on the other side of the 
street. I had a feeling of much soreness several years respecting 
what I must still ever call Miss Wozenham's systematic under- 
bidding and the likeness of the house in Bradshaw having far too 
many windows and a most umbrageous and outrageous Oak which 
never yet was seen in Norfolk-street nor yet a carriage and four at 
Wozenham's door; which it would have been far more to Brad- 
shaw's credit to have drawn a cab. This frame of mind continued 
bitter down to the very afternoon in January last when one of my 
girls, Sally Rairyganoo which I still suspect of Irish extraction 
though family represented Cambridge, else why abscond with a 
bricklayer of the Limerick persuasion and be married in pattens 
not waiting till his black eye was decently got round with all the 
company fourteen in number and one horse fighting outside on the 
roof of the vehicle, — I repeat my dear my ill-regulated state of 
mind towards Miss Wozenham continued down to the very after- 
noon of January last past when Sally Rairyganoo came banging 
(I can use no milder expression) into my room with a jump which 
may be Cambridge and may not, and said " Hurroo Missis ! Miss 
Wozenham's sold up ! " My dear when I had it thrown in 
my face and conscience that the girl Sally had reason to think 
I could be glad of the ruin of a fellow-creetur, I burst into 



406 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

tears and dropped back in my chair and I says "I am ashamed of 
myself!" 

Well ! I tried to settle to my tea but I could not do it what 
with thinking of Miss Wozenham and her distresses. It was a 
wretched night and I went up to a front window and looked over 
at Wozenham's and as well as I could make it out down the street 
in the fog it was the dismallest of the dismal and not a light to be 
seen. So at last I says to myself " This will not do," and I puts 
on my oldest bonnet and shawl not wishing Miss Wozenham to be 
reminded of my best at such a time, and lo and behold you I goes 
over to Wozenham's and knocks. "Miss Wozenham at home?" 
I says turning my head when I heard the door go. And then I 
saw it was Miss Wozenham herself who had opened it and sadly 
worn she was poor thing and her eyes all swelled and swelled with 
crying. " Miss Wozenham " I says "it is several years since 
there was a little unpleasantness betwixt us on the subject of my 
grandson's cap being down your Airy. I have overlooked it and 
I hope you have done the same." "Yes Mrs. Lirriper " she says 
in a surprise "I have," "Then my dear" I says "I should be 
glad to come in and speak a word to you." Upon my calling her 
my dear Miss Wozenham breaks out a crying most pitiful, and 
a not unfeeling elderly person that might have been better shaved 
in a nightcap with a hat over it offering a polite apology for the 
mumps having worked themselves into his constitution, and also 
for sending home to his wife on the bellows which was in his hand 
as a writing-desk, looks out of the back parlour and says " The 
lady wants a word of comfort " and goes in again. So I was able 
to say quite natural " Wants a word of comfort does she sir ? 
Then please the pigs she shall have it ! " And Miss Wozenham 
and me we go into the front room with a wretched light that 
seemed to have been crying too and was spluttering out, and I 
says "Now my dear, tell me all," and she wrings her hands and 
says "0 Mrs. Lirriper that man is in possession here, and I have 
not a friend in the world who is able to help me with a shilling." 

It doesn't signify a bit what a talkative old body like me said 
to Miss Wozenham when she said that, and so I'll tell you instead 
my dear that I'd have given thirty shillings to have taken her over 
to tea, only I durstn't on account of the Major. Not you see but 
what I knew I could draw the Major out like thread and wind 
him round my finger on most subjects and perhaps even on that if 
I was to set myself to it, but him and me had so often belied Miss 
Wozenham to one another that I was shamefaced, and I knew she 
had offended his pride and never mine, and likewise I felt timid 
that that Rairyganoo girl might make things awkward. So I 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 407 

says "My dear if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my 
muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs." And 
we had the tea and the affairs too and after all it was but forty 
pound, and — There ! she's as industrious and straight a creetur 
as ever lived and has paid back half of it already, and where's the 
use of saying more, particularly when it an't the point ? For the 
point is tliat when slie was a kissing my hands and holding them 
in hers and kissing them again and blessing blessing blessing, I 
cheered up at last and I says " Why what a waddling old goose 
I have been my dear to take you for something ^o very different ! " 
"Ah but I too" says she "how have / mistaken you I'' "Come 
for goodness' sake tell me" I says "what you thought of me?" 
" " says she "I thought you had no feeling for such a hard 
hand-to-mouth life as mine, and were rolling in affluence." I says 
shaking my sides (and very glad to do it for I had been a choking 
quite long enough) " Only look at my figure my dear and give me 
your opinion whether if I was in affluence I should be likely to 
roll in it ? " That did it ! We got as merry as grigs (whatever 
they are, if you happen to know my dear — / don't) and I went 
home to my blessed home as happy and as thankful as could be. 
But before I make an end of it, think even of my having misun- 
derstood the Major ! Yes ! For next forenoon the Major came 
into my little room with his brushed hat in his hand and he begins 
" My dearest madam — " and then put his face in his hat as if he 
had just come into church. As I sat all in a maze he came out of 
his hat and began again. " My esteemed and beloved friend — " 
and then went into his hat again. "Major," I cries out fright- 
ened " has anything happened to our darling boy % " " No, no, 
no" says the Major "but Miss Wozenham has been here this 
morning to make her excuses to me, and by the Lord I can't get 
over what she told me." " Hoity toity. Major," I says " you don't 
know yet that I was afraid of you last night and didn't think half 
as well of you as I ought ! So come out of church Major and 
forgive me like a dear old friend and I'll never do so any more." 
And I leave you to judge my dear whetlier I ever did or will. 
And how aff'ecting to think of Miss Wozenham out of her small 
income and her losses doing so much for her poor old father, and 
keeping a brother that had had the misfortune to soften his brain 
against the hard mathematics as neat as a new pin in the three 
back represented to lodgers as a lumber-room and consuming a 
whole shoulder of mutton whenever provided ! 

And now my dear I really am a going to tell you about my 
Legacy if you're inclined to favour me with your attention, and I 
did fully intend to have come straight to it only one thing does so 



408 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

bring up another. It was the month of June and the day before 
Midsummer Day when my girl Winifred Madgers — she was what 
is termed a Plymouth Sister, and the Plymouth Brother that made 
away with her was quite right, for a tidier young woman for a wife 
never came into a house and afterwards called with the beauti- 
fullest Plymouth Twins — it was the day before Midsummer Day 
when Winifred Madgers comes and says to me "A gentleman from 
the Consul's wishes particular to speak to Mrs. Lirriper." If you'll 
believe me my dear the Consols at the bank where I have a little 
matter for Jemmy got into my head, and I says " Good gracious I 
hope he an't had any dreadful fall!" Says AVinifred "He don't 
look as if he had ma'am." And I says " Show him in." 

The gentleman came in dark and with his hair cropped what 
I should consider too close, and he says very polite "Madame 
Lirrwiper!" I says "Yes sir. Take a chair." "I come," says 
he "frrwom the Frrwench Consul's." So I saw at once that it 
wasn't the Bank of England. "We have rrweceived," says the 
gentleman turning his r's very curious and skilful, "frrwom the 
Mairrwie at Sens, a communication which I will have the honour 
to rrwead. Madame Lirrwiper understands Frrwench?" "0 
dear no sir!" says I. "Madame Lirriper don't understand any- 
thing of the sort." " It matters not," says the gentleman, " I will 
trrwanslate." 

With that my dear the gentleman after reading something about 
a Department and a Marie (which Lord forgive me I supposed till 
the Major came home was Maiy, and never was I more puzzled 
than to think how that young woman came to have so much to do 
with it) translated a lot with the most obliging pains, and it came 
to this : — That in the town of Sens in France an unknown Eng- 
lishman lay a dying. That he was speechless and without motion. 
That in his lodging there was a gold watch and a purse containing 
such and such money and a trunk containing such and such clothes, 
but no passport and no papers, except that on his table was a pack 
of cards and that he had written in pencil on the back of the ace of 
hearts : " To the authorities. When I am dead, pray send what is 
left, as a last Legacy, to Mrs. Lirriper Eighty-one Norfolk-street 
Strand London." AVhen the gentleman had explained all this, which 
seemed to be drawn up much more methodical than I should have 
given the French credit for, not at that time knowing the nation, 
he put the document into my hand. And much the wiser I was for 
that you may be sure, except that it had the look of being made 
out upon grocery paper and was stamped all over with eagles. 

"Does Madame Lirrwiper" says the gentleman "believe she 
rrwecognises her unfortunate compatrrwiot ? " 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 409 

You may imagine the flurry it put me into my dear to be talked 
to about my compatriots. 

I says " Excuse me. Would you have the kindness sir to make 
your language as simple as you can ? " 

" This Englishman unhappy, at the point of death. This com- 
patrrwiot affhcted," says the gentleman. 

"Thank you sir" I says "I understand you now. No sir I 
have not the least idea who this can be." 

"Has Madame Lirr wiper no son, no nephew, no godson, no 
frrwiend, no acquaintance of any kind in Frrwance ? " 

"To my certain knowledge" says I "no relation or friend, and 
to the best of my belief no acquaintance." 

" Pardon me. You take Locataires ? " says the gentleman. 

My dear fully believing he was offering me something with his 
obliging foreign manners, — snuff for anything I knew, — I gave a 
little bend of my head and I says if you'll credit it, " No I thank 
you. I have not contracted the habit." 

The gentleman looks perplexed and says " Lodgers ! " 

" Oh ! " says I laughing. " Bless the man ! Why yes to be 
sure ! " 

"May it not be a former lodger?" says the gentleman. "Some 
lodger that you pardoned some rrwent ? You have pardoned lodg- 
ers some rrwent 1 " 

" Hem ! It has happened sir " says I, " but I assure you I can 
call to mind no gentleman of that description that this is at all likely 
to be." 

In short my dear, we could make nothing of it, and the gentle- 
man noted down what I said and went away. But he left me the 
paper of which he had two with him, and when the Major came in 
I says to the Major as I put it in his hand " Major here's Old Moore's 
Almanac with the hieroglyphic complete, for your opinion." 

It took the Major a little longer to read than I should have 
thought, judging from the copious flow with which he seemed to be 
gifted when attacking the organ-men, but at last he got through it, 
and stood a gazing at me in amazement. 

" Major " I says " You're paralysed." 

"Madam "says the Major, " Jemmy Jackman is doubled up." 

Now it did so happen that the Major had been out to get a little 
information about railroads and steamboats, as our boy was coming 
home for his Midsummer holidays next day and we were going 
to take him somewhere for a treat and a change. So while the 
Major stood a gazing it came into my head to say to him " Major 
I wish you'd go and look at some of your books and maps, and see 
whereabouts this same town of Sens is in France." 



410 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

The Major he roused himself and he went into the Parlours and 
he poked about a little, and he came back to me and he says, " Sens 
my dearest madam is seventy-odd miles south of Paris." 

With what I may truly call a desperate effort " Major," I says 
" we'll go there with our blessed boy." 

If ever the Major was beside himself it was at the thoughts of 
that journey. All day long he was like the wild man of the woods 
after meeting with an advertisement in the papers telling him some- 
thing to his advantage, and early next morning hours before Jemmy 
could possibly come home he was outside in the street ready to call 
out to him that we was all a going to France. Young Rosy-cheeks 
you may believe was as wild as the Major, and they did carry on to 
that degree that I says "If you two children an't more orderly I'll 
pack you both off to bed." And then they fell to cleaning up the 
Major's telescope to see France with, and went out and bought a 
leather bag with a snap to hang round Jemmy, and him to carry 
the money like a little Fortunatus with his purse. 

If I hadn't passed my word and raised their hopes, I doubt if I 
could have gone through with the undertaking but it was too late 
to go back now. So on the second day after Midsummer Day we 
went off by the morning mail. And when we came to the sea which 
I had never seen but once in my life and that when my poor Lirri- 
per was courting me, the freshness of it and the deepness and the 
airiness and to think that it had been rolling ever since and that 
it was always a rolling and so few of us minding, made me feel quite 
serious. But I felt happy too and so did Jemmy and the Major 
and not much motion on the whole, though me with a swimming in 
the head and a sinking but able to take notice that the foreign in- 
sides appear to be constructed hoUower than the English, leading to 
much more tremeujous noises when bad sailors. 

But my dear the blueness and the lightness and the coloured look 
of everything and the very sentry-boxes striped and the shining rat- 
tling drums and the little soldiers with their waists and tidy gaiters, 
when we got across to the Continent — it made me feel as if I don't 
know what — as if the atmosphere had been lifted off me. And as 
to lunch why bless you if I kept a man-cook and two kitchen-maids 
I couldn't get it done for twice the money, and no injured young 
woman a glaring at you and grudging you and acknowledging your 
patronage by wishing that your food might choke you, but so civil 
and so hot and attentive and every way comfortable except Jemmy 
pouring wine down his throat by tumblers-full and me expecting to 
see him drop under the table. 

And the way in which Jemmy spoke his French was a real charm. 
It was often wanted of him, for whenever anybody spoke a syllable 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 411 

to me I says " Noncomprenny, you're very kind, but it's no use — 
Now Jemmy ! " and then Jemmy he fires away at 'em lovely, the 
only thing wanting in Jemmy's French being as it appeared to me 
that he hardly ever understood a word of what they said to him 
which made it scarcely of the use it might have been though in other 
respects a perfect Native, and regarding the Major's fluency I should 
have been of the opinion judging French by English that there 
might have been a greater choice of words in the language though 
still I must admit that if I hadn't known him when he asked a 
mihtary gentleman in a grey cloak what o'clock it was I should have 
took him for a Frenchman born. 

Before going on to look after my Legacy we were to make one 
regular day in Paris, and I leave you to judge my dear what a day 
that was with Jemmy and the Major and the telescope and me and 
the prowling young man at the inn door (but very civil too) that 
went along with us to show the sights. All along the railway to 
Paris Jemmy and the Major had been frightening me to death by 
stooping down on the platforms at stations to inspect the engines 
underneath their mechanical stomachs, and by creeping in and out 
I don't know where all, to find improvements for the United Grand 
Junction Parlour, but when we got out into the brilliant streets 
on a bright morning they gave up all their London improvements 
as a bad job and gave their minds to Paris. Says the prowling 
young man to me " Will I speak Inglis No ? " So I says " If you 
can young man I shall take it as a favour," but after half an hour 
of it when I fully believed the man had gone mad and me too I 
says "Be so good as fall back on your French sir," knowing that 
then I shouldn't have the agonies of trying to understand him, 
which was a happy release. Not that I lost much more than the 
rest either, for I generally noticed that when he had described 
something very long indeed and I says to Jemmy "What does he 
say Jemmy ? " Jemmy says looking with vengeance in his eye 
" He is so jolly indistinct ! " and that when he had described it longer 
all over again and I says to Jemmy " Well Jemmy what's it all 
about?" Jemmy says "He says the building was repaired in seven- 
teen hundred and four, Gran." 

Wherever that prowling young man formed his prowling habits 
I cannot be expected to know, but the way in which he went 
round the corner while we had our breakfasts and was there again 
when we swallowed the last crumb was most marvellous, and just 
the same at dinner and at night, prowling equally at the theatre 
and the inn gateway and the shop doors when we bought a trifle or 
two and everywhere else but troubled with a tendency to spit. 
And of Paris I can tell you no more my dear than that it's town 



412 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

and country both in one, and carved stone and long streets of high 
houses and gardens and fountains and statues and trees and gold, 
and immensely big soldiers and immensely little soldiers and the 
pleasantest nurses with the whitest caps a playing at skipping-rope 
with the bunchiest babies in the flattest caps, and clean table-cloths 
spread everywhere for dinner and people sitting out of doors smok- 
ing and sipping all day long and little plays being acted in the open 
air for little people and every shop a complete and elegant room, 
and everybody seeming to play at everything in this world. And 
as to the sparkling lights my dear after dark, glittering high up 
and low down and on before and on behind and all round, and the 
crowd of theatres and the crowd of people and the crowd of all 
sorts, it's pure enchantment. And pretty well the only thing that 
grated on me was that whether you pay your fare at the railway or 
whether you change your money at a money -dealer's or whether you 
take your ticket at the theatre, the lady or gentleman is caged up 
(I suppose by government) behind the strongest iron bars having 
more of a Zoological appearance than a free country. 

Well to be sure when I did after all get my precious bones to bed 
that night, and my Young Rogue came in to kiss me and asks 
"What do you think of this lovely lovely Paris, Gran?" I says 
" Jemmy I feel as if it was beautiful fireworks being let oS in my 
head." And very cool and refreshing the pleasant country was 
next day when we went on to look after my Legacy, and rested me 
much and did me a deal of good. 

So at length and at last my dear we come to Sens, a pretty little 
town with a great two-towered cathedral and the rooks flying in 
and out of the loopholes and another tower atop of one of the towers 
like a sort of a stone pulpit. In which pulpit with the birds skim- 
ming below him if you'll believe me, I saw a speck while I was 
resting at the inn before dinner which they made signs to me was 
Jemmy and which really was. I had been a fancying as I sat in 
the balcony of the hotel that an Angel might light there and call 
down to the people to be good, but I little thought what Jemmy 
all unknown to himself was a calling down from that high place to 
some one in the town. 

The pleasantest-situated inn my dear ! Right under the two 
towers, with their shadows a changing upon it all day like a kind 
of a sundial, and country people driving in and out of the courtyard 
in carts and hooded cabriolets and such like, and a market outside 
in front of the cathedral, and all so quaint and like a picter. The 
Major and me agreed that whatever came of my Legacy this was 
the place to stay in for our holiday, and we also agreed that our 
dear boy had best not be checked in his joy that night by the sight 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 413 

of the Englishman if he was still alive, but that we would go to- 
gether and alone. For you are to understand that the Major not 
feeling himself quite equal in his wind to the height to which Jemmy- 
had climbed, had come back to me and left him with the Guide. 

So after dinner when Jemmy had set off to see the river, the 
Major went down to the Mairie, and presently came back with a 
military character in a sword and spurs and a cocked hat and a 
yellow shoulder-belt and long tags about him that he must have 
found inconvenient. And the Major says " The Englishman still 
lies in the same state dearest madam. This gentleman will con- 
duct us to his lodging." Upon which the military character pulled 
off his cocked hat to me, and I took notice that he had shaved his 
forehead in imitation of Napoleon Bonaparte but not like. 

We went out at the courtyard gate and past the great doors of 
the cathedral and down a narrow High-street where the people 
were sitting chatting at their shop doors and the children were at 
play. The military character went in front and he stopped at a 
pork-shop with a little statue of a pig sitting up, in the window, 
and a private door that a donkey was looking out of. 

When the donkey saw the military character he came shpping 
out on the pavement to turn round and then clattered along the 
passage into a backyard. So the coast being clear, the Major and 
me were conducted up the common stair and into the front room 
on the second, a bare room with a red tiled floor and the outside 
lattice blinds pulled close to darken it. As the military character 
opened the blinds I saw the tower where I had seen Jemmy, dark- 
ening as the sun got low, and I turned to the bed by the wall and 
saw the Englishman. 

It was some kind of brain fever he had had, and his hair was all 
gone, and some wetted folded linen lay upon his head. I looked at 
him very attentive as he lay there all wasted away with his eyes 
closed, and I says to the Major 

"I never saw this face before." 

The Major looked at him very attentive too, and he says 

"/ never saw this face before." 

When the Major explained our words to the military character, 
that gentleman shrugged his shoulders and showed the Major the 
card on which it was written about the Legacy for me. It had 
been written with a weak and trembling hand in bed, and I knew 
no more of the writing than of the face. Neither did the Major. 

Though lying there alone, the poor creetur was as well taken care 
of as could be hoped, and would have been quite unconscious of any 
one's sitting by him then. I got the Major to say that we were 
not going away at present and that I would come back to-morrow 



414 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

and watch a bit by the bedside. But I got him to add — and I 
shook my head hard to make it stronger — "We agree that we 
never saw this face before." 

Our boy was greatly surprised when we told him sitting out in 
the balcony in the starlight, and he ran over some of those stories of 
former Lodgers, of the Major's putting down, and asked wasn't it 
possible that it might be this lodger or that lodger. It was not 
possible, and we went to bed. 

In the morning just at breakfast-time the military character 
came jingling round, and said that the doctor thought from the 
signs he saw there might be some rally before the end. So I 
says to the Major and Jemmy, "You two boys go and enjoy your- 
selves, and I'll take my Prayer Book and go sit by the bed." So 
I went, and I sat there some hours, reading a prayer for him poor 
soul now and then, and it was quite on in the day when he moved 
his hand. 

He had been so still, that the moment he moved I knew of it, 
and I pulled off my spectacles and laid down my book and rose and 
looked at him. From moving one hand he began to move both, 
and then his action was the action of a person groping in the dark. 
Long after his eyes had opened, there was a film over them and he 
still felt for his way out into light. But by slow degrees his sight 
cleared and his hands stopped. He saw the ceiling, he saw the 
wall, he saw me. As his sight cleared, mine cleared too, and when 
at last we looked in one another's faces, I started back and I 
cries passionately : 

" you wicked wicked man ! Your sin has found you out ! " 

For I knew him, the moment life looked out of his eyes, to be 
Mr. Edson, Jemmy's father who had so cruelly deserted Jemmy's 
young unmarried mother who had died in my arms, poor tender 
creetur, and left Jemmy to me. 

"You cruel wicked man ! You bad black traitor ! " 

With the little strength he had, he made an attempt to turn over 
on his wretched face to hide it. His arm dropped out of the bed 
and his head with it, and there he lay before me crushed in body 
and in mind. Surely the miserablest sight under the summer sun ! 

"0 blessed Heaven," I says a crying, "teach me what to say to 
this broken mortal ! I am a poor sinful creetur, and the Judgment 
is not mine." 

As I lifted my eyes up to the clear bright sky, I saw the high 
tower where Jemmy had stood above the birds, seeing that very 
window ; and the last look of that poor pretty young mother when 
her soul brightened and got free, seemed to shine down from it. 

" man, man, man ! " I says, and I went on my knees beside the 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 415 

bed ; " if your heart is rent asunder and you are truly penitent for 
what you did, Our Saviour will have mercy on you yet ! " 

As I leaned my face against the bed, his feeble hand could just 
move itself enough to touch me. I hope the touch was penitent, 
[t tried to hold my dress and keep hold, but the fingers were too 
vs^eak to close. 

I lifted him back upon the pillows and I says to him : 

" Can you hear me ? " 

He looked yes. 

"Do you know me ? " 

He looked yes, even yet more plainly. 

" I am not here alone. The Major is with me. You recollect 
the Major?" 

Yes. That is to say he made out yes, in the same way as before. 

"And even the Major and I are not alone. My grandson — his 
godson — is with us. Do you hear ? My grandson." 

The fingers made another trial to catch at my sleeve, but could 
only creep near it and fall. 

" Do you know who my grandson is 1 " 

Yes. 

" I pitied and loved his lonely mother. When his mother lay a 
dying I said to her, ' My dear, this baby is sent to a childless old 
woman.' He has been my pride and joy ever since. I love him as 
dearly as if he had drunk from my breast. Do you ask to see my 
grandson before you die 1 " 

Yes. 

" Show me, when I leave off speaking, if you correctly under- 
stand what I say. He has been kept unacquainted with the story 
of his birth. He has no knowledge of it. No suspicion of it. If 
I bring him here to the side of this bed, he will suppose you to be 
a perfect stranger. It is more than I can do to keep from him the 
knowledge that there is such wrong and misery in the world ; but 
that it was ever so near him in his innocent cradle I have kept 
from him, and I do keep from him, and I ever will keep from him, 
for his mother's sake, and for his own." 

He showed me that he distinctly understood, and the tears fell 
from his eyes. 

" Now rest, and you shall see him." 

So I got him a little wine and some brandy, and I put things 
straight about his bed. But I began to be troubled in my mind 
lest Jemmy and the Major might be too long of coming back. 
What with this occupation for my thoughts and hands, I didn't 
hear a foot upon the stairs, and ^vas startled when I saw the Major 
stopped short in the middle of the room by the eyes of the man 



416 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

upon the bed, and knowing him then, as I had known him a little 
while ago. 

There was anger in the Major's face, and there was horror and 
repugnance and I don't know what. So I went up to him and I 
led him to the bedside, and when I clasped my hands and lifted of 
them up, the Major did the like. 

" Lord " I says " Thou knowest what we two saw together of 
the sufferings and sorrows of that young creetur now with Thee. 
If this dying man is truly penitent, we two together humbly pray 
Thee to have mercy on him ! " 

The Major says " Amen ! " and then after a little stop I whispers 
him, " Dear old friend fetch our beloved boy." And the Major, so 
clever as to have got to understand it all without being told a 
word, went away and brought him. 

Never never never shall I forget the fair bright face of our boy 
when he stood at the foot of the bed, looking at his unknown 
father. And so Uke his dear young mother then ! 

" Jemmy " I says, " I have found out all about this poor gentle- 
man who is so ill, and he did lodge in the old house once. And as 
he wants to see all belonging to it, now that he is passing away, I 
sent for you." 

" Ah poor man ! " says Jemmy stepping forward and touching 
one of his hands with great gentleness. " My heart melts for him. 
Poor, poor man ! " 

The eyes that were so soon to close for ever turned to me, and I 
was not that strong in the pride of my strength that I could resist 
them. 

" My darling boy, there is a reason in the secret history of this 
fellow-creetur, lying as the best and worst of us must all lie one 
day, which I think would ease his spirit in his last hour if you 
would lay your cheek against his forehead and say, ' May God for- 
give you ! ' " 

" Gran," says Jemmy with a full heart "I am not worthy ! " 
But he leaned down and did it. Then the faltering fingers made 
out to catch hold of my sleeve at last, and I believe he was a-trying 

to kiss me when he died. 

=H= # * # # # * 

There my dear ! There you have the story of my Legacy in full, 
and it's worth ten times the trouble I have spent upon it if you are 
pleased to like it. 

You might suppose that it set us against the little French town 
of Sens, but no we didn't find that. I found myself that I never 
looked up at the high tower atop of the other tower, but the days 
came back again when that fair young creetur with her pretty 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 417 

bright hair trusted in me like a mother, and the recollection made 
the place so peaceful to me as I can't express. And every soul 
about the hotel down to the pigeons in the courtyard made friends 
with Jemmy and the Major, and went lumbering away with them 
on all sorts of expeditions in all sorts of vehicles drawn by rampagious 
cart-horses, — with heads and without, — mud for paint and ropes 
for harness, — and every new friend dressed in blue like a butcher, 
and every new horse standing on his hind legs wanting to devour 
and consume every other horse, and every man that had a whip to 
crack crack-crack-crack-crack-cracking it as if it was a schoolboy 
with his first. As to the Major my dear that man lived the 
greater part of his time with a little tumbler in one hand and 
a bottle of small wine in the other, and whenever he saw anybody 
else with a little tumbler, no matter who it was, — the military 
character with the tags, or the inn-servants at their supper in the 
courtyard, or townspeople a chatting on a bench, or country people 
a starting home after market, — down rushes the Major to clink his 
glass against their glasses and cry, — Hola ! Yive Somebody ! or 
Vive Something ! as if he was beside himself And though I could 
not quite approve of the Major's doing it, still the ways of the world 
are the ways of the world varying according to the different parts 
of it, and dancing at all in the open Square with a lady that kept 
a barber's shop my opinion is that the Major was right to dance his 
best and to lead ofi" with a power that I did not think was in him, 
though I was a little uneasy at the Barricading sound of the cries 
that were set up by the other dancers and the rest of the company, 
until when I says " What are they ever calling out Jemmy 1 " 
Jemmy says, " They're calling out Gran, Bravo the Military Eng- 
lish ! Bravo the Military English ! " which was very gratifying to 
my feelings as a Briton and became the name the Major was 
known by. 

But every evening at a regular time we all three sat out in the 
balcony of the hotel at the end of the courtyard, looking up at the 
golden and rosy light as it changed on the great towers, and look- 
ing at the shadows of the towers as they changed on all about us 
ourselves included, and what do you think we did there? My dear, 
if Jemmy hadn't brought some other of those stories of the Major's 
taking down from the telling of former lodgers at Eighty-one Nor- 
folk-street, and if he didn't bring 'em out with this speech : 

" Here you are Gran ! Here you are godfather ! More of 'em ! 
/'ll read. And though you wrote 'em for me, godfather, I know 
you won't disapprove of my making 'em over to Gran ; will you 1 " 

"No, my dear boy," says the Major. "Everything we have is 
hers, and we are hers." 

2 £ 



418 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

"Hers ever affectionately and devotedly J. Jackman, and J. Jack- 1 
man Lirriper," cries the Young Rogue giving me a close hug. , 
" Very well then godfather. Look here. As Gran is in the Legacy \ 
way just now, I shall make these stories a part of Gran's Legacy. ; 
I'll leave 'em to her. What do you say godfather ? " 

" Hip hip Hurrah ! " says the Major. 

" Very well then," cries Jemmy all in a bustle. " Vive the Mili- 
tary English ! Vive the Lady Lirriper ! Vive the Jemmy Jack- 
man Ditto ! Vive the Legacy ! Now, you look out, Gran. And 
you look out, godfather, /'ll read ! And I'll tell you what I'll do 
besides. On the last night of our holiday here when we are all 
packed and going away, I'll top up with something of my own." 

" Mind you do sir " says I. 



Chapter II. 

MRS. LIRRIPER RELATES HOW JEMMY TOPPED UP. 

Well my dear and so the evenuig readings of those jottings of 
the Major's brought us round at last to the evening when we were 
all packed and going away next day, and I do assure you that by 
that time though it was deliciously comfortable to look forward to 
the dear old house in Norfolk-street again, I had formed quite a 
high opinion of the French nation and had noticed them to be much 
more homely and domestic in their families and far more simple 
and amiable in their lives than I had ever been led to expect, and 
it did strike me between ourselves that in one particular they might 
be imitated to advantage by another nation which I will not men- 
tion, and that is in the courage with which they take their little 
enjoyments on little means and with little things and don't let 
solemn big-wigs stare them out of countenance or speechify them 
dull, of which said solemn big- wigs I have ever had the one opinion 
that I wish they were all made comfortable separately in coppers 
with the lids on and never let out any more. 

"Now young man," I says to Jemmy when we brought our 
chairs into the balcony that last evening, "you please to remember 
who was to ' top up.' " 

" All right Gran " says Jemmy. " I am the illustrious person- 
age." 

But he looked so serious after he had made me that light answer, 
that the Major raised his eyebrows at me and I raised mine at the 
Major. 

"Gran and godfather," says Jemmy, "you can hardly think how 
much my mind has run on Mr. Edson's death." 



MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 419 

It gave me a little check. " Ah ! it was a sad scene my love " 
I says, "and sad remembrances come back stronger than merry. 
But this" I says after a little silence, to rouse myself and the 
Major and Jemmy all together, "is not topping up. Tell us your 
story my dear." 

" I will " says Jemmy. 

" What is the date sir ? " says I. " Once upon a time when pigs 
drank wine ? " 

" No Gran," says Jemmy, still serious ; " once upon a time when 
the French drank wine." 

Again I glanced at the Major, and the Major glanced at me. 

"In short, Gran and godfather," says Jemmy^ looking up, " the 
date is this time, and I'm going to tell you Mr. Edson's story." 

The flutter that it threw me into. The change of colour on the 
part of the Major ! 

"That is to say, you understand," our bright-eyed boy says, " I 
am going to give you my version of it, I shall not ask whether it's 
right or not, firstly because you said you knew very little about it, 
Gran, and secondly because what little you did know was a secret." 

I folded my hands in my lap and I never took my eyes off 
Jemmy as he went running on. 

" The unfortunate gentleman " Jemmy commences, " who is the 
subject of our present narrative was the son of Somebody, and was 
born Somewhere, and chose a profession Somehow. It is not with 
those parts of his career that we have to deal ; but with his early 
attachment to a young and beautiful lady." 

I thought I should have dropped. I durstn't look at the Major ; 
but I knew what his state was, without looking at him. 

" The father of our ill-starred hero " says Jemmy, copying as it 
seemed to me the style of some of his story-books, " was a worldly 
man who entertained ambitious views for his only son and who 
firmly set his face against the contemplated alliance with a virtuous 
but penniless orphan. Indeed he went so far as roundly to assure 
our hero that unless he weaned his thoughts from the object of his 
devoted aff'ection, he would disinherit him. At the same time, he 
proposed as a suitable match the daughter of a neighbouring gentle- 
man of a good estate, who was neither ill-favoured nor unamiable, 
and whose eligibility in a pecuniary point of view could not be dis- 
puted. But young Mr. Edson, true to the first and only love that 
had inflamed his breast, rejected all considerations of self-advance- 
ment, and, deprecating his father's anger in a respectful letter, ran 
away with her." 

My dear I had begun to take a turn for the better, but when it 
come to running away I began to take another turn for the worse. 



420 MRS. LIRRIPER'S LEGACY. 

"The lovers" says Jemmy "fled to London and were united at 
the altar of Saint Clement's Danes. And it is at this period of their 
simple but touching story that we find them inmates of the dwell- 
ing of a highly-respected and beloved lady of the name of Gran, re- 
siding within a hundred miles of Norfolk-street." 

I felt that we were almost safe now, I felt that the dear boy 
had no suspicion of the bitter truth, and I looked at the Major 
for the first time and drew a long breath. The Major gave me 
a nod. 

" Our hero's father " Jemmy goes on " proving implacable and 
carrying his threat into unrelenting execution, the struggles of the 
young couple in London were severe, and would have been far more 
so, but for their good angel's having conducted them to the abode 
of Mrs. Gran ; who, divining their poverty (in spite of their endeav- 
ours to conceal it from her), by a thousand delicate arts smoothed 
their rough way, and alleviated the sharpness of their first distress." 

Here Jemmy took one of my hands in one of his, and began a 
marking the turns of his story by making me give a beat from time 
to time upon his other hand. 

" After a while, they left the house of Mrs. Gran, and pursued 
their fortunes through a variety of successes and failures elsewhere. 
But in all reverses, whether for good or evil, the words of Mr. Ed- 
son to the fair young partner of his life were, ' Unchanging Love 
and Truth will carry us through all I ' " 

My hand trembled in the dear boy's those words were so wofuUy 
unlike the fact. 

" Unchanging Love and Truth " says Jemmy over again, as if he 
had a proud kind of a noble pleasure in it, "will carry us through 
all ! Those were his words. And so they fought their way, poor 
but gallant and happy, until Mrs. Edson gave birth to a child." 

" A daughter," I says. 

" No," says Jemmy, "a son. And the father was so proud of it 
that he could hardly bear it out of his sight. But a dark cloud 
overspread the scene. Mrs. Edson sickened, drooped, and died." 

" Ah ! Sickened, drooped, and died ! " I says. 

" And so Mr. Edson's only comfort, only hope on earth, and only 
stimulus to action, was his darling boy. As the child grew older, 
he grew so like his mother that he was her living picture. It used 
to make him wonder why his father cried when he kissed him. But 
unhappily he was like his mother in constitution as well as in face, 
and he died too before he had grown out of childhood. Then Mr. 
Edson, who had good abilities, in his forlornness and despair, threw 
them all to the winds. He became apathetic, reckless, lost. Little 
by little he sank down, down, down, down, until at last he almost 



DOCTOK MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 421 

lived (I think) by gaming. And so sickness overtook him in the 
town of Sens in France, and he lay down to die. But now that he 
laid him down when all was done, and looked back upon the green 
Past beyond the time when he had covered it with ashes, he thought 
gratefully of the good Mrs. Gran long lost sight of, who had been 
so kind to liim and his young wife in the early days of their mar- 
riage, and he left the little that he had as a last Legacy to her. 
And she, being brought to see him, at first no more knew him 
than she would know from seeing the ruin of a Greek or Roman 
Temple, what it used to be before it fell ; but at jength she remem- 
bered him. And then he told her, with tears, of his regret for the 
misspent part of his life, and besought her to think as mildly of it 
as she could, because it was the poor fallen Angel of his unchang- 
ing Love and Constancy after all. And because she had her grandson 
with her, and he fancied that his own boy, if he had lived, might 
have grown to be something like him, he asked her to let him touch 
his forehead with his cheek and say certain parting words." 

Jemmy's voice sank low when it got to that, and tears filled my 
eyes, and filled the Major's. 

" You little Conjurer " I says, " how did you ever make it all 
out ? Go in and write it every word down, for it's a wonder." 

Which Jemmy did, and I have repeated it to you my dear from 
his writing. 

Then the Major took my hand and kissed it, and said, " Dearest 
madam all has prospered with us." 

" Ah Major " I says drying my eyes, " we needn't have been 
afraid. We might have known it. Treachery don't come natural 
to beaming youth ; but trust and pity, love and constancy, — they 
do, thank God ! " 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

IN THREE CHAPTERS. 

Chapter I. 

TO BE TAKEN IMMEDIATELY. 

I AM a Cheap Jack, and my own father's name was Willum 
Marigold. It was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name 
was William, but my own father always consistently said, No, it 
was Willum. On which point I content myself with looking at 
the argument this way : If a man is not allowed to know his own 



422 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

name in a free country, how much is he allowed to know in a land 
of slavery ? As to looking at the argument through the medium 
of the Register, Willum Marigold come into the world before Reg- 
isters come up much, — and went out of it too. They Avouldn't 
have been greatly in his line neither, if they had chanced to come 
up before him. 

I was born on the Queen's highway, but it was the King's at 
that time. A doctor was fetched to my own mother by my own 
father, when it took place on a common ; and in consequence of 
his being a very kind gentleman, and accepting no fee but a tea- 
tray, I was named Doctor, out of gratitude and compliment to 
him. There you have me. Doctor Marigold. 

I am at present a middle-aged man of a broadish build, in cords, 
leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings of which is always 
gone behind. Repair them how you will, they go like fiddle- 
strings. You have been to the theatre, and you have seen one of 
the wiolin-players screw up his wiolin, after listening to it as if it 
had been whispering the secret to him that it feared it was out 
of order, and then you have heard it snap. That's as exactly 
similar to my waistcoat as a waistcoat and a wiolin can be like one 
another. 

I am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck 
wore loose and easy. Sitting down is my favourite posture. If I 
have a taste in point of personal jewelry, it is mother-of-pearl but- 
tons. There you have me again, as large as life. 

The doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you'll guess that my 
father was a Cheap Jack before me. You are right. He was. 
It was a pretty tray. It represented a large lady going along a 
serpentine up-hill gravel-walk, to attend a little church. Two 
swans had likewise come astray with the same intentions. AVhen 
I call her a large lady, I don't mean in point of breadth, for there 
she fell below my views, but she more than made it up in height ; 
her height and slimness was — in short the height of both. 

I often saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling cause 
(or more likely screeching one) of the doctor's standing it up on a 
table against the wall in his consulting-room. Whenever my own 
father and mother were in that part of the country, I used to put 
my head (I have heard my own mother say it was flaxen curls at 
that time, though you wouldn't know an old hearth-broom from it 
now till you come to the handle, and found it wasn't me) in at the 
doctor's door, and the doctor was always glad to see me, and said, 
"Aha, my brother practitioner! Come in, little M.D. How are 
your inclinations as to sixpence?" 

You can't go on for ever, you'll find, nor yet could my father nor 




DOCTOR MARIGOLD, 



424 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

yet my mother. If you don't go off as a whole when you are about 
due, you're liable to go off in part, and two to one your head's the 
part. Gradually my father went off his, and my mother went off 
hers. It. was in a harmless way, but it put out the family where 
I boarded them. The old couple, though retired, got to be wholly 
and solely devoted to the Cheap Jack business, and were always 
selling the family off. Whenever the cloth was laid for dinner, 
my father began rattling the plates and dishes, as we do in our line 
when we put up crockery for a bid, only he had lost the trick of 
it, and mostly let 'em drop and broke 'em. As the old lady had 
been used to sit in the cart, and hand the articles out one by one 
to the old gentleman on the footboard to sell, just in the same way 
she handed him every item of the family's property, and they dis- 
posed of it in their own imaginations from morning to night. At 
last the old gentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the 
old lady, cries out in the old patter, fluent, after having been silent 
for two days and nights : "Now here, my jolly companions every- 
one, — which the Nightingale club in a village was held, At the 
sign of the Cabbage and Shears, Where the singers no doubt would 
have greatly excelled. But for want of taste, voices, and ears, — 
now, here, my jolly companions, every one, is a working model of 
a used-up old Cheap Jack, without a tooth in his head, and with 
a pain in every bone : so like life that it would be just as good if 
it wasn't better, just as bad if it wasn't worse, and just as new if 
it wasn't worn out. Bid for the working model of the old Cheap 
Jack, who has drunk more gunpowder-tea with the ladies in his 
time than would blow the lid off a washerwoman's copper, and 
carrj'- it as many thousands of miles higher than the moon as 
naught nix naught, divided by the national debt, carry nothing to 
the poor-rates, three under, and two over. Now, my hearts of oak 
and men of straw, what do you say for the lot ? Two shillings, a 
shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence, fourpence. Twopence? 
Who said twopence ? The gentleman in the scarecrow's hat ? I 
am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's hat. I really am 
ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now I'll tell you 
what I'll do with you. Come ! I'll throw you in a working 
model of a old woman that was married to the old Cheap Jack so 
long ago that upon my word and honour it took place in Noah's 
Ark, before the Unicorn could get in to forbid the banns by blow- 
ing a tune upon his horn. There now ! Come ! What do you 
say for both? I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I don't bear 
you malice for being so backward. Here ! If you make me a bid 
that'll only reflect a little credit on your town, I'll throw you in a 
warming-pan for nothing, and lend you a toasting-fork for life. 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 425 

Now come ; what do you say after that splendid offer ? Say two 
pound, say thirty shillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, 
say two and six. You don't say even two and six 1 You say two 
and three ? No. You shan't have the lot for two and three. I'd 
sooner give it to you, if you was good-looking enough. Here ! 
Missis ! Chuck the old man and woman into the cart, put the 
horse to, and drive 'em away and bury 'em ! " Such were the last 
words of Willum Marigold, my own father, and they were carried 
out, by him and by his wife, my own mother, on one and the same 
day, as I ought to know, having followed as motirner. 

My father had been a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack 
work, as his dying observations went to prove. But I top him. 
I don't say it because it's myself, but because it has been univer- 
sally acknowledged by all that has had the means of comparison. 
I have worked at it. I have measured myself against other public 
speakers, — Members of Parliament, Platforms, Pulpits, Counsel 
learned in the law, — and where I have found 'em good, I have 
took a bit of imagination from 'em, and where I have found 'era 
bad, I have let 'em alone. Now I'll tell you what. I mean to 
go down into my grave declaring that of all the callings ill used in 
Great Britain, the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used. Why 
ain't we a profession? Why ain't we endowed with privileges'? 
Why are we forced to take out a hawker's license, when no such 
thing is expected of the political hawkers ? Where's the diff'erence 
betwixt us ? Except that we are Cheap Jacks and they are Dear 
Jacks, / don't see any difference but what's in our favour. 

For look here ! Say it's election time. I am on the footboard 
of my cart in the market-place, on a Saturday night. I put up a 
general miscellaneous lot. I say : " Now here, my free and inde- 
pendent woters, I'm a going to give you such a chance as you never 
had in all your born days, nor yet the days preceding. Now I'll 
show you what I am a going to do with you. Here's a pair of 
razors that'll shave you closer than the Board of Guardians ; here's 
a flat-iron worth its weight in gold ; here's a frying-pan artificially 
flavoured with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you've only 
got for the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it and 
there you are replete with animal food ; here's a genuine chronom- 
eter watch in such a solid silver case that you may knock at the 
door with it when you come home late from a social meeting, and 
rouse your wife and family, and save up your knocker for the post- 
man ; and here's half-a-dozen dinner plates that you may play the 
cymbals with to charm the baby when it's fractious. Stop ! I'll 
throw you in another article, and I'll give you that, and it's a roll- 
ing-pin ; and if the baby can only get it well into its mouth when 



426 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

its teeth is coming and rub the gums once with it, they'll come 
through double, in a fit of laughter equal to being tickled. Stop 
again ! I'll throw you in another article, because I don't like the 
looks of you, for you haven't the appearance of buyers unless I lose 
by you, and because I'd rather lose than not take money to-night, 
and that's a looking-glass in which you may see how ugly you look 
when you don't bid. What do you say now ? Come ! Do you 
say a pound ? Not you, for you haven't got it. Do you say ten 
shillings ? Not you, for you owe more to the tallyman. Well then, 
I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll heap 'em all on the foot- 
board of the cart, — there they are ! razors, flat-iron, frying-pan, 

chronometer watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking-glass, 

take 'em all away for four shillings, and I'll give you sixpence for 
your trouble ! " This is me, the Cheap Jack. But on the Monday 
morning, in the same market-place, comes the Dear Jack on the 
hustings — his cart — and what does he say 1 " Now my free and 
independent woters, I am a going to give you such a chance " (he 
begins just like me) " as you never had in all j^our born days, and 
that's the chance of sending Myself to Parliament. Now I'll tell 
you what I am a going to do for you. Here's the interests of this 
magnificent town promoted above all the rest of the civilised and 
uncivilised earth. Here's your railways carried, and your neigh- 
bours' railways jockeyed. Here's all your sons in the Post-office. 
Here's Britannia smiling on you. Here's the eyes of Europe on you. 
Here's uniwersal prosperity for you, repletion of animal food, golden 
cornfields, gladsome homesteads, and rounds of applause from your 
own hearts, all in one lot, and that's myself. Will you take me as I 
stand ? You won't ? Well, then, I'll tell you what I'll do with you. 
Come now ! I'll throw you in anything you ask for. There ! Church- 
rates, abolition of church-rates, more malt tax, no malt tax, uniwer- 
sal education to the highest mark, or uniwersal ignorance to the j 
lowest, total abolition of flogging in the army or a dozen for every j 
private once a month all round. Wrongs of Men or Rights of Women I 
— only say which it shall be, take 'em or leave 'em, and I'm of your 
opinion altogether, and the lot's your own on your own terms. 
There ! You won't take it yet ! Well, then, I'll tell you what j 
I'll do with you. Come ! You are such free and independent i 
woters, and I a77i so proud of you, — you are such a noble and en- 
lightened constituency, and I a7?i so ambitious of the honour and 
dignity of being your member, which is by far the highest level to 
which the wings of the human mind can soar, — that I'll tell you 
what I'll do with you. I'll throw you in all the public-houses in 
your magnificent town for nothing. Will that content you ? It 
won't 1 You won't take the lot yet ? Well, then, before I put the 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 427 

horse in aud drive away, and make the offer to the next most mag- 
nificent town that can be discovered, I'll tell you what I'll do. Take 
the lot, and I'll drop two thousand pound in the streets of your mag- 
nificent town for them to pick up that can. Not enough ? Now 
look here. This is the very furthest that I'm a going to. I'll make 
it two thousand five hundred. And still you won't ? Here, missis ! 
Put the horse — no, stop half a moment, I shouldn't like to turn 
my back upon you neither for a trifle, I'll make it two thousand 
seven hundred and fifty pound. There ! Take the lot on your 
own terms, and I'll count out two thousand .^even hundred and 
fifty pound on the footboard of the cart, to be dropped in the streets 
of your magnificent town for them to pick up that can. What do 
you say ? Come now ! You won't do better, and you may do worse. 
You take it 1 Hooray ! Sold again, and got the seat ! " 

These Dear Jacks soap the people shameful, but we Cheap Jacks 
don't. We tell 'em the truth about themselves to their faces, and 
scorn to court 'em. As to wenturesomeness in the way of pufting 
up the lots, the Dear Jacks beat us hollow. It is considered in the 
Cheap Jack calling, that better patter can be made out of a gun 
than any article we put up from the cart, except a pair of spectacles. 
I often hold forth about a gun for a quarter of an hour, and feel as 
if I need never leave oft'. But when I tell 'em what the gun can 
do, and what the gun has brought down, I never go half so far as 
the Dear Jacks do when they make speeches in praise of theh- guns 
— their great guns that set 'em on to do it. Besides, I'm in busi- 
ness for myself : I ain't sent down into the market-place to order, as 
they are. Besides, again, my guns don't know what I say in their 
laudation, and their gims do, and the whole concern of 'em have rea- 
son to be sick and ashamed all round. These are some of my argu- 
ments for declaring that the Cheap Jack calling is treated ill in 
Great Britain, and for turning warm when I think of the other Jacks 
in question setting themselves up to pretend to look down upon it. 

I courted my wife from the footboard of the cart. I did indeed. 
She was a Suffolk young woman, and it was in Ipswich market- 
place right opposite the corn-chandler's shop. I had noticed her 
up at a window last Saturday that was, appreciating highly. I had 
took to her, and I had said to myself, " If not already disposed of, 
I'll have that lot." Next Saturday that come, I pitched the cart on 
the same pitch, and I was in very high feather indeed, keeping 'em 
laughing the whole of the time, and getting off the goods briskly. 
At last I took out of my waistcoat-pocket a small lot wrapped in 
soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the window where 
she was). " Now here, my blooming English maidens, is an article, 
the last article of the present evening's sale, which I offer to only 



428 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. " 

you, the lovely Suffolk Dumplings biling over with beauty, and I 
won't take a bid of a thousand pounds for from any man alive. 
Now what is it 1 Why, I'll tell you what it is. It's made of fine 
gold, and it's not broke, though there's a hole in the middle of it, 
and it's stronger than any fetter that ever was forged, though its 
smaller than any finger in my set of ten. Why ten ? Because, 
when my parents made over my property to me, I tell you true, 
there was twelve sheets, twelve towels, twelve table-cloths, twelve 
knives, twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and twelve teaspoons, but 
my set of fingers was two short of a dozen, and could never since be 
matched. Now what else is it ? Come, I'll tell you. It's a hoop 
of solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper, that I myself took oflF 
the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle- 
street, London city ; I wouldn't tell you so if I hadn't the paper to 
show, or you mightn't believe it even of me. Now what else is it ? 
It's a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock, all 
in gold and all in one. Now what else is it ? It's a wedding-ring. 
Now I'll tell you what I'm a going to do with it. I'm not a going 
to offer this lot for money ; but I mean to give it to the next of 
you beauties that laughs, and I'll pay her a visit to-morrow morn- 
ing at exactly half after nine o'clock as the chimes go, and I'll take 
her out for a walk to put up the banns." She laughed, and got the 
ring handed up to her. When I called in the morning, she says, 
" dear ! It's never you, and you never mean it ? " " It's ever me," 
says I, "and I am ever yours, and I ever mean it." So we got 
married, after being put up three times — which, by the bye, is 
quite in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the , 
Cheap Jack customs pervade society. 

She wasn't a bad wife, but she had a temper. If she could have | 
parted with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn't have swopped ' 
her away in exchange for any other woman in England. Not that 
I ever did swop her away, for we lived together till she died, and 
that was thirteen year. Now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks 
all, I'll let you into a secret, though you won't believe it. Thirteen 
year of temper in a Palace would try the worst of you, but tliirteen • 
year of temper in a Cart would try the best of you. You are kept 
so very close to it in a cart, you see. There's thousands of couples 
among you getting on like sweet ile upon a whetstone in houses five 
and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to the Divorce Court in 
a cart. Whether the jolting makes it worse, I don't undertake to 
decide ; but in a cart it does come home to you, and stick to you. | 
Wiolence in a cart is so wiolent, and aggrawation in a cart is so | 
aggrawating. 

We might have had such a pleasant life ! A roomy cart, with the 



DOCTOK MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 429 

large goods hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when on 
the road, an iron pot and a kettle, a fire-iDlace for the cold weather, 
a chimney for the smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a dog and 
a horse. What more do you want 1 You draw off upon a bit of 
turf in a green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse 
and turn him grazing, you light your fire upon the ashes of the last 
visitors, you cook your stew, and you wouldn't call the Emperor of 
France your father. But have a temper in the cart, flinging lan- 
guage and the hardest goods in stock at you, and where are you 
then ? Put a name to your feelings. 

My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did. Before 
she broke out, he would give a howl, and bolt. How he knew it, 
was a mystery to me ; but the sure and certain knowledge of it 
would wake him out of his soundest sleep, and he would give a 
howl, and bolt. At such times I wished I was him. 

The worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and I love 
children with all my heart. When she was in her furies she beat 
the child. This got to be so shocking, as the child got to be four 
or five year old, that I have many a time gone on with my whip 
over my shoulder, at the old horse's head, sobbing and crying worse 
than ever little Sophy did. For how could I prevent it ? Such a 
thing is not to be tried with such a temper — in a cart — without 
coming to a fight. It's in the natural size and formation of a cart 
to bring it to a fight. And then the poor child got worse terrified 
than before, as well as worse hurt generally, and her mother made 
complaints to the next people we lighted on, and the word went 
round, " Here's a wretch of a Cheap Jack been a beating his wife." 

Little Sophy was such a brave child ! She grew to be quite de- 
voted to her poor father, though he could do so little to help her. 
She had a wonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling 
natural about her. It is quite astonishing to me now, that I didn't 
go tearing mad when I used to see her run from her mother 
before the cart, and her mother catch her by this hair, and pull her 
down by it, and beat her. 

Such a brave child I said she was ! Ah ! with reason. 

"Don't you mind next time, father dear," she would whisper to 
me, with her little face still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet ; 
" if I don't cry out, you may know I am not much hurt. And 
even if I do cry out, it will only be to get mother to let go and 
leave off"." What I have seen the little spirit bear — forme — 
without crying out ! 

Yet in other respects her mother took great care of her. Her 
clothes were always clean and neat, and her mother was never tired of 
working at 'em. Such is the inconsistency in things. Our being 



430 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

clown in the marsh country in unhealthy weather, I consider the 
cause of Sophy's taking bad low fever ; but however she took it, 
once she got it she turned away from her mother for evermore, and 
nothing would persuade her to be touched by her mother's hand. 
She would shiver and say, "No, no, no," when it was offered at, 
and would hide her face on my shoulder, and hold me tighter round 
the neck. 

The Cheap Jack business had been worse than ever I had known 
it, what with one thing and what with another (and not least with 
railroads, which will cut it all to pieces, I expect, at last), and I 
was run dry of money. For which reason, one night at that period 
of little Sophy's being so bad, either we must have come to a dead- 
lock for victuals and drink, or I must have pitched the cart as I did. 

I couldn't get the dear child to lie down or leave go of me, and 
indeed I hadn't the heart to try, so I stepj^ed out on the footboard 
with her holding round my neck. They all set up a laugh when 
they see us, and one chuckle-headed Joskin (that I hated for it) 
made the bidding, " Tuppence for her ! " 

"Now, you country boobies," says I, feeling as if my heart was a 
heavy weight at the end of a broken sashline, " I give you notice 
that I am a going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to 
give you so much more than your money's worth that you'll only 
persuade yourselves to draw your Saturday night's wages ever again 
arterwards by the hopes of meeting me to lay 'em out with, which 
you never will, and why not ? Because I've made my fortune by 
selling my goods on a large scale for seventy-five per cent, less than 
I give for 'em, and I am consequently to be elevated to the House 
of Peers next week, by the title of the Duke of Cheap and Markis 
Jackaloorul. Now let's know what you want to-night, and you 
shall have it. But first of all, shall I tell you why I have got this 
little girl round my neck ? You don't want to know 1 Then you 
shall. She belongs to the Fairies. She's a fortune-teller. She 
can tell me all about you in a whisper, and can put me up to 
whether you're going to buy a lot or leave it. Now do you want 
a saw 1 No, she says you don't, because you're too clumsy to use 
one. Else here's a saw which would be a lifelong blessing to a handy 
man, at four shillings, at three and six, at three, at two and six, at 
two, at eighteen-pence. But none of you shall have it at any price, 
on account of your well-known awkwardness, which would make it 
manslaughter. The same objection applies to this set of three 
planes which I won't let you have neither, so don't bid for 'em. 
Now I am a going to ask her what you do want." (Then I 
whispered, "Your head burns so, that I am afraid it hurts you bad, 
my pet," and she answered, without opening her heavy eyes, "Just 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 431 

a little, father.") "0 ! This little fortune-teller says it's a memo- 
randum-book you want. Then why didn't you mention it ? Here 
it is. Look at it. Two hundred superfine hot-pressed wire-wove 
pages — if you don't believe me, count 'em — ready ruled for your 
expenses, an everlastingly pointed pencil to put 'em down with, a 
double-bladed penknife to scratch 'em out with, a book of printed 
tables to calculate your income with, and a camp-stool to sit down 
upon while you give your mind to it ! Stop ! And an umbrella to 
keep the moon off when you give your mind to it on a pitch dark 
night. Now I won't ask you how much for the ipt, but how little ? 
How little are you thinking of? Don't be ashamed to mention it, be- 
cause my fortune-teller knows already." (Then making believe to 
whisper, I kissed her, and she kissed me.) "Why, she says you are 
thinking of as little as three and threepence ! I couldn't have be- 
lieved it, even of j^ou, unless she told me. Three and threepence ! 
And a set of printed tables in the lot that'll calculate your income 
up to forty thousand a year ! With an income of forty thousand a 
year, you grudge three and sixpence. Well then, I'll tell you my 
opinion. I so despise the threepence, that I'd sooner take three 
shillings. There. For three shillings, three shillings, three shillings ! 
Gone. Hand 'em over to the lucky man." 

As there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about and 
grinned at everybody, while I touched little Sophy's face and asked 
her if she felt faint, or giddy. " Not very, father. It will soon 
be over." Then turning from the pretty patient eyes, which' were 
opened now, and seeing nothing but grins across my lighted grease- 
pot, I went on again in my Cheap Jack style. "Where's the 
butcher 1 " (My sorrowful eye had just caught sight of a fat young 
butcher on the outside of the crowd.) " She says the good luck is 
the butcher's. Where is he 1 " Everybody handed on the blush- 
ing butcher to the front, and there was a roar, and the butcher felt 
himself obliged to put his hand in his pocket, and take the lot. 
The party so picked out, in general, does feel obliged to take the 
lot — good four times out of six. Then we had another lot, the 
counterpart of that one, and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is 
always wery much enjoyed. Then we had the spectacles. It ain't 
a special profitable lot, but I put 'em on, and I see what the Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer is going to take off the taxes, and I see what 
the sweetheart of the young woman in the shawl is doing at home, 
and I see what the Bishops has got for dinner, and a deal more that 
seldom fails to fetch 'em up in their spirits ; and the better their 
spirits, the better their bids. Then we had the ladies' lot — the 
teapot, tea-caddy, glass sugar-basin, half-a-dozen spoons, and caudle- 
cup — and all the time I was making similar excuses to give a look 



432 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

or two and say a word or two to my poor child. It was w^hile the 
second ladies' lot was holding 'em enchained that I felt her lift her- 
self a little on my shoulder, to look across the dark street. " What 
troubles you, darling ? " " Nothing troubles me, father. I am not 
at all troubled. But don't I see a pretty churchyard over there ? " 
" Yes, my dear." " Kiss me twice, dear father, and lay me down to 
rest upon that churchyard grass so soft and green." I staggered back 
into the cart with her head dropped on my shoulder, and I says to 
her mother, " Quick. Shut the door ! Don't let those laughing peo- 
ple see ! " "What's the matter? " she cries. " woman, woman," 
I tells her, " you'll never catch my little Sophy by her hair again, 
for she has flown away from you ! " 

Maybe those were harder words than I meant 'em ; but from 
that time forth my wife took to brooding, and would sit in the cart 
or walk beside it, hours at a stretch, with her arms crossed, and 
her eyes looking on the ground. When her furies took her (which 
was rather seldomer than before) they took her in a new way, and 
she banged herself about to that extent that I w^as forced to hold 
her. She got none the better for a little drink now and then, and 
through some years I used to wonder, as I plodded along at the old 
horse's head, whether there was many carts upon the road that held 
so much dreariness as mine, for all my being looked up to as the 
King of the Cheap Jacks. So sad our lives went on till one sum- 
mer evening, when, as we were coming into Exeter, out of the farther 
West of England, we saw a woman beating a child in a cruel man- 
ner, who screamed, "'Don't beat me ! mother, mother, mother ! " 
Then my wife stopped her ears, and ran away like a wild thing, and 
next day she was found in the river. 

Me and my dog were all the company left in the cart now ; and 
the dog learned to give a short bark when they wouldn't bid, and 
to give another and a nod of his head when I asked him, " Who said 
half a'crown ? Are you the gentleman, sir, that off'ered half a crown ? " 
He attained to an immense height of popularity, and I shall always 
believe taught himself entirely out of his own head to growl at any 
person in the crowd that bid as low as sixpence. But he got to be 
well on in years, and one night when I was conwulsing York with 
the spectacles, he took a conwulsion on his owti account upon the 
very footboard by me, and it finished him. 

Being naturally of a tender turn, I had dreadful lonely feehngs 
on me arter this. I conquered 'em at selling times, having a repu- 
tation to keep (not to mention keeping myself), but they got me 
down in private, and rolled upon me. That's often the way with 
us public characters. See us on the footboard, and you'd give pretty 
well anything you possess to be us. See us off the footboard, and 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 433 

you'd add a trifle to be off your bargain. It was under those cir- 
cumstances that I come acquainted with a giant. I might have 
been too high to fall into conversation with him, had it not been for 
my lonely feelings. For the general rule is, going round the coun- 
try, to draw the line at dressing up. When a man can't trust his 
getting a living to his undisguised abilities, you consider him below 
your sort. And this giant when on view figured as a Roman. 

He was a languid young man, which I attribute to the distance 
betwixt his extremities. He had a little head and less in it, he 
had weak eyes and weak knees, and altogether you couldn't look at 
him without feeling that there was greatly too much of him both for 
his joints and his mind. But he was an amiable though timid young 
man (his mother let him out, and spent the money), and we come 
acquainted when he was walking to ease the horse betwixt two 
fairs. He was called Rinaldo di Velasco, his name being Pickleson. 

This giant, otherwise Pickleson, mentioned to me under the seal 
of confidence that, beyond his being a burden to himself, his life 
was made a burden to him by the cruelty of his master towards a step- 
daughter who was deaf and dumb. Her mother was dead, and she 
had no living soul to take her part, and was used most hard. She 
travelled with his master's caravan only because there was nowhere 
to leave her, and this giant, otherwise Pickleson, did go so far as to 
believe that his master often tried to lose her. He was such a very 
languid young man, that I don't know how long it didn't take him 
to get this story out, but it passed through his defective circulation 
to his top extremity in course of time. 

When I heard this account from the giant, otherwise Pickleson, 
and likewise that the poor girl had beautiful long dark hair, and 
was often pulled down by it and beaten, I couldn't see the giant 
through what stood in my eyes. Having wiped 'em, I give him 
sixpence (for he was kept as short as he was long), and he laid it 
out in two threepenn'orths of gin-and-water, which so brisked him 
up, that he sang the Favourite Comic of Shivery Shakey, ain't it 
cold ? — a popular effect which his master had tried every other 
means to get out of him as a Roman wholly in vain. 

His master's name was Mim, a wery hoarse man, and I knew him 
to speak to. I went to that Fair as a mere civilian, leaving the 
cart outside the town, and I looked about the back of the Vans 
while the performing was going on, and at last, sitting dozing against 
a muddy cart-wheel, I come upon the poor girl who was deaf and 
dumb. At the first look I might almost have judged that she had 
escaped from the Wild Beast Show ; but at the second I thought 
better of her, and thought that if she was more cared for and more 
kindly used she would be like my child. She was just the same 

2f 



434 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 



i 



age that my own daughter would have been, if her pretty head had 
not fell down upon my shoulder that unfortunate night. 

To cut it short, I spoke confidential to Mini while he was beat- 
ing the gong outside betwixt two lots of Pickleson's publics, and I 
put it to him, "She lies heavy on your own hands ; what'll you 
take for her ? " Mim was a most ferocious swearer. Suppressing 
that part of his reply which was much the longest part, his reply 
was, " A pair of braces." "Now I'll tell you," says I, "what I'm 
a going to do with you. I'm a going to fetch you half-a-dozen pair 
of the primest braces in the cart, and then to take her away with 
me." Says Mim (again ferocious), " I'll believe it when I've got 
the goods, and no sooner." I made all the haste I could, lest he 
should think twice of it, and the bargain was completed, which 
Pickleson he was thereby so relieved in his mind that he come out 
at his little back door, longways like a serpent, and give us Shivery 
Shakey in a whisper among the wheels at parting. 

It was happy days for both of us when Sophy and me began to 
travel in the cart. I at once give her the name of Sophy, to put 
her ever towards me in the attitude of my own daughter. We 
soon made out to begin to understand one another, through the 
goodness of the Heavens, when she knowed that I meant true and 
kind by her. In a very little time she was wonderful fond of me. 
You have no idea what it is to have anybody wonderful fond of 
you, unless you have been got down and rolled upon by the lonely 
feelings that I have mentioned as having once got the better of me. 

You'd have laughed — or the rewerse — it's according to your 
disposition — if you could have seen me trying to teach Sophy. 
At first I was helped — you'd never guess by what — milestones. 
I got some large alphabets in a box, all the letters separate on bits 
of bone, and saying we was going to Windsor, I give her those 
letters in that order, and then at every milestone I showed her 
those same letters in that same order again, and pointed towards 
the abode of royalty. Another time I give her CART, and then 
chalked the same upon the cart. Another time I give her DOC- 
TOR MARIGOLD, and hung a corresponding inscription outside 
my waistcoat. People that met us might stare a bit and laugh, 
but what did / care, if she caught the idea ? She caught it after 
long patience and trouble, and then we did begin to get on swim- 
mingly, I believe you ! At first she was a little given to consider 
me the cart, and the cart the abode of royalty, but that soon wore 
oJQT. 

We had our signs, too, and they was hundreds in number. 
Sometimes she would sit looking at me and considering hard how 
to communicate with me about somethins: fresh, — how to ask me 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 435 

what she wanted explained, — and then she was (or I thought she 
was; what does it signify?) so like my child with those years 
added to her, that I half-believed it was herself, trying to tell me 
where she had been to up in the skies, and what she had seen 
since that unhappy night when she flied away. She had a pretty 
face, and now that there was no one to drag at her bright dark 
hair, and it was all in order, there was a something touching in 
her looks that made the cart most peaceful and most quiet, though 
not at all melancholy. [N.B. In the Cheap Jack patter, we 
generally sound it lemonjoUy, and it gets a laugh.] 

The way she learnt to understand any look of mine was truly 
surprising. When I sold of a night, she would sit in the cart 
unseen by them outside, and would give a eager look into my eyes 
when I looked in, and would hand me straight the precise article 
or articles I wanted. And then she would clap her hands, and 
laugh for joy. And as for me, seeing her so bright, and remember- 
ing what she was when I first lighted on her, starved and beaten 
and ragged, leaning asleep against the muddy cart-wheel, it give 
me such heart that I gained a greater heighth of reputation than 
ever, and I put Pickleson down (by the name of Mim's Travelling 
Griant otherwise Pickleson) for a fypunnote in my will. 

This happiness went on in the cart till she was sixteen year old. 
By which time I began to feel not satisfied that I had done my 
whole duty by her, and to consider that she ought to have better 
teaching than I could give her. It drew a many tears on both 
sides when I commenced explaining my views to her ; but what's 
right is right, and you can't neither by tears nor laughter do away 
with its character. 

So I took her hand in mine, and I went with her one day to the 
Deaf and Dumb Establishment in London, and when the gentle- 
man come to speak to us, I says to him : "Now I'll tell you what 
I'll do with you, sir. I am nothing but a Cheap Jack, but of late 
years I have laid by for a rainy day notwithstanding. This is my 
only daughter (adopted), and you can't produce a deafer nor a 
dumber. Teach her the most that can be taught her in the short- 
est separation that can be named, — state the figure for it, — and 
I am game to put the money down. I won't bate you a single 
farthing, sir, but I'll put down the money here and now, and I'll 
thankfully throw you in a pound to take it. There ! " The gentle- 
man smiled, and then, "Well, well," says he, "I must first know 
what she has learned already. How do you communicate with 
her?" Then I showed him, and she wrote in printed writing 
many names of things and so forth ; and we held some sprightly 
conversation, Sophy and me, about a little story in a book which 



436 DOCTOK MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

the gentleman showed her, and which she was able to read. " This 
is most extraordinary," says the gentleman; "is it possible that 
you have been her only teacher ?" " I have been her only teacher, 
sir," I says, " besides herself." " Then," says the gentleman, and 
more acceptable words was never spoke to me, "you're a clever 
fellow, and a good fellow." This he makes known to Sophy, who 
kisses his hands, claps her own, and laughs and cries upon it. 

AVe saw the gentleman four times in all, and when he took 
down my name and asked how in tlie world it ever chanced to be 
Doctor, it come out that he was own nephew by the sister's side, 
if you'll believe me, to the very Doctor that I was called after. 
This made our footing still easier, and he says to me : 

" Now, Marigold, tell me what more do you want your adopted 
daughter to know 1 " 

" I want her, sir, to be cut off from the world as little as can be, 
considering her deprivations, and therefore to be able to read what- 
ever is wrote with perfect ease and pleasure." 

" My good fellow," urges the gentleman, opening his eyes wide, 
" why / can't do that myself ! " 

I took his joke, and gave him a laugh (knowing by experience 
how flat you fall without it), and I mended my words accordingly. 

" What do you mean to do with her afterwards ? " asks the gentle- 
man, with a sort of a doubtful eye. ' ' To take her about the country ? " 

"In the cart, sir, but only in the cart. She will live a private 
life, you understand, in the cart. I should never think of bring- 
ing her infirmities before the public. I wouldn't make a show of 
her for any money." 

The gentleman nodded, and seemed to approve. 

"Well," says he, "can you part with her for two years'?" 

" To do her that good, — yes, sir." 

"There's another question," says the gentleman, looking towards 
her, — " can she part with you for two years 1 " 

I don't know that it was a harder matter of itself (for the other 
was hard enough to me), but it was harder to get over. However, 
she was pacified to it at last, and the separation betwixt us was 
settled. How it cut up both of us when it took place, and when 
I left her at the door in the dark of an evening, I don't tell. But 
I know this; remembering that night, I shall never pass that 
same establishment without a heartache and a swelling in the 
throat ; and I couldn't put you up the best of lots in sight of it 
with my usual spirit, — no, not even the gun, nor the pair of spec- 
tacles, — for five hundred pound reward from the Secretary of 
State for the Home Department, and throw in the honour of put- 
ting my legs under his mahogany arterwards. 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 437 

Still, the loneliness that followed in the cart was not the old 
loneliness, because there was a term put to it, however long to look 
forward to ; and because I could think, when I was anyways down, 
that she belonged to me and I belonged to her. Always planning 
for her coming back, I bought in a few months' time another cart, 
and what do you think I planned to do with it ? I'll tell you. I 
planned to fit it up with shelves and books for her reading, and to 
have a seat in it where I could sit and see her read, and think that 
I had been her first teacher. Not hurrying over the job, I had 
the fittings knocked together in contriving ways under ray own 
inspection, and here was her bed in a berth with curtains, and 
there was her reading-table, and here was her writing-desk, and 
elsewhere was her books in rows upon rows, picters and no pict- 
ers, bindings and no bindings, gilt-edged and plain, just as I could 
pick 'em up for her in lots up and down the country. North and 
South and West and East, Winds liked best and winds liked least, 
Here and there and gone astray, Over the hills and far away. And 
when I had got together pretty well as many books as the cart 
would neatly hold, a new scheme come into my head, which, as it 
turned out, kept my time and attention a good deal employed, and 
helped me over the two years' stile. 

Without being of an awaricious temper, I like to be the owner 
of things. I shouldn't wish, for instance, to go partners with 
yourself in the Cheap Jack cart. It's not that I mistrust you, but 
that I'd rather know it was mine. Similarly, very likely you'd 
rather know it was yours. Well ! A kind of a jealousy began to 
creep into my mind when I reflected that all those books would 
have been read by other people long before they was read by her. 
It seemed to take away from her being the owner of 'em like. In 
this way, the question got into my head : Couldn't I have a book 
new-made express for her, which she should be the first to read ? 

It pleased m.e, that thought did ; and as I never was a man to 
let a thought sleep (you must wake up all the whole family of 
thoughts you've got and burn their nightcaps, or you won't do in 
the Cheap Jack line), I set to work at it. Considering that I was 
in the habit of changing so much about the country, and that I 
should have to find out a literary character here to make a deal 
with, and another literary character there to make a deal with, as 
opportunities presented, I hit on the plan that this same book 
should be a general miscellaneous lot, — like the razors, flat-iron, 
chronometer watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking-glass, — 
and shouldn't be offered as a single indiwidual article, like the 
spectacles or the gun. When I had come to that conclusion, I 
come to another, which shall likewise be yours. 



438 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

Often had I regretted that she never had heard me on the foot- 
board, and that she never could hear me. It ain't that / am vain, 
but that you don't Uke to put your own light under a bushel. 
What's the worth of your reputation, if you can't convey the reason 
for it to the person you most wish to value it 1 Now I'll put it 
to you. Is it worth sixpence, fippence, fourpence, threepence, two- 
pence, a penny, a halfpenny, a farthing'? No, it ain't. Not 
worth a farthing. Very well, then. My conclusion was that I 
would begin her book with some account of myself. So that, 
through reading a specimen or two of me on the footboard, she 
might form an idea of my merits there. I was aware that I 
couldn't do myself justice. A man can't write his eye (at least / 
don't know how to), nor yet can a man write his voice, nor the 
rate of his talk, nor the quickness of his action, nor his general 
spicy way. But he can write his turns of speech, when he is a 
public speaker, — and indeed I have heard that he very often does, 
before he speaks 'em. 

Well ! Having formed that resolution, then come the question 
of a name. How did I hammer that hot iron into shape 1 This 
way. The most difficult explanation I had ever had with her was, 
how I come to be called Doctor, and yet was no Doctor. After 
all, I felt that I had failed of getting it correctly into her mind, 
with my utmost pains. But trusting to her improvement in the 
two years, I thought that I might trust to her understanding it 
when she should come to read it as put down by my own hand. 
Then I thought I would try a joke with her and watch how it took, 
by which of itself I might fully judge of her understanding it. 
We had first discovered the mistake we had dropped into, through 
her having asked me to prescribe for her when she had supposed 
me to be a Doctor in a medical point of view ; so thinks I, " Now, 
if I give this book the name of my Prescriptions, and if she catches 
the idea that my only Prescriptions are for her amusement and 
interest, — to make her laugh in a pleasant way, or to make her 
cry in a pleasant way, — it will be a delightful proof to both of 
us that we have got over our difficulty." It fell out to absolute 
perfection. For when she saw the book, as I had it got up, — 
the printed and pressed book, — lying on her desk in her cart, 
and saw the title. Doctor Marigold's Prescriptions, she looked 
at me for a moment with astonishment, then fluttered the leaves, 
then broke out a laughing in the charmingest way, then felt her 
pulse and shook her head, then turned the pages pretending to read 
them most attentive, then kissed the book to me, and put it to her 
bosom with both her hands. I never was better pleased in all 
my life ! 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 439 

But let me not anticipate. (I take that expression out of a lot 
of romances I bought for her. I never opened a single one of 
'em — and I have opened many — but I found the romancer say- 
ing "let me not anticipate." Which being so, I wonder why he 
did anticipate, or who asked him to do it.) Let me not, I say, 
anticipate. This same book took up all my spare time. It was 
no play to get the other articles together in the general miscellane- 
ous lot, but when it come to my own article ! There ! I couldn't 
have believed the blotting, nor yet the buckling to at it, nor the 
patience over it. Which again is like the footboard. The public 
have no idea. 

At last it was done, and the tw^o years' time was gone after all 
the other time before it, and where it's all gone to, who knows 1 The 
new cart was finished, — yellow outside, relieved with wermilion and 
brass fittings, — the old horse was put in it, a new 'un and a boy 
being laid on for the Cheap Jack cart, — and I cleaned myself up 
to go and fetch her. Bright cold weather it was, cart-chimneys 
smoking, carts pitched private on a piece of waste ground over at 
Wandsworth, where you may see 'em from the Soii'western Railway 
when not upon the road. (Look out of the right-hand window 
going dowm.) 

"Marigold," says the gentleman, giving his hand hearty, "I 
am very glad to see you," 

" Yet I have my doubts, sir," says I, "if you can be half as 
glad to see me as I am to see you." 

" The time has appeared so long, — has it, Marigold?" 

" I won't say that, sir, considering its real length ; but — " 

" What a start, my good fellow ! " 

Ah ! I should think it was ! Grown such a woman, so pretty, 
so intelligent, so expressive ! I knew then that she must be really 
like my child, or I could never have known her, standing quiet 
by the door. 

"You are affected," says the gentleman in a kindly manner. 

" I feel, sir," says I, " that I am but a rough chap in a sleeved 
waistcoat." 

"I feel," says the gentleman, "that it was you who raised her 
from misery and degradation, and brought her into communication 
with her kind. But why do we converse alone together, when we 
can converse so well with her? Address her in your own way." 

"I am such a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat, sir," says I, 
"and she is such a graceful woman, and she stands so quiet at the 
door ! " 

" Try if she moves at the old sign," says the gentleman. 

They had got it up together o' purpose to please me ! For when 



440 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

I give her the old sign, she rushed to my feet, and dropped upon 
her knees, holding up her hands to me with pouring tears of love 
and joy ; and when I took her hands and lifted her, she clasped 
me round the neck, and lay there ; and I don't know what a fool I 
didn't make of myself, until we all three settled down into talking 
without sound, as if there was a something soft and pleasant spread 
over the whole world for us. 

[A portion is here omitted from the text, having reference to the 
sketches contributed by other writers; but the reader will be 
pleased to have what follows retained in a note : 

" Now I'll tell you what I am a going to do with you. I am 
a going to offer you the general miscellaneous lot, her own book, 
never read by anybody else but me, added to and completed by 
me after her first reading of it, eight-and-forty printed pages, six- 
and-ninety columns. Whiting's own work, Beaufort House to wit, 
thrown off by the steam-ingine, best of paper, beautiful green 
wrapper, folded like clean linen come home from the clear-starcher's, 
and so exquisitely stitched that, regarded as a piece of needlework 
alone, it's better than the sampler of a seamstress undergoing a 
Competitive examination for Starvation before the Civil Service 
Commissioners — and I offer the lot for what ? For eight pound ? 
Not so much. For six pound ? Less. For four pound. Why, 
I hardly expect you to believe me, but that's the sum. Four 
pound ! The stitching alone cost half as much again. Here's 
forty-eight original pages, ninety-six original columns, for four 
pound. You want more for the money 1 Take it. Three whole 
pages of advertisements of thrilling interest thrown in for nothing. 
Read 'em and believe 'em. More ? My best of wishes for your 
merry Christmases and your happy New Years, your long lives 
and your true prosperities. Worth twenty pound good if they are 
delivered as I send them. Remember ! Here's a final prescrip- 
tion added, "To be taken for life," which will tell you how the 
cart broke down, and where the journey ended. You think Four 
Pound too much ? And still you think so 1 Come ! I'll tell you 
what then. Say Four Pence, and keep the secret."] 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 441 

Chapter II. 

TO BE TAKEN FOE LIFE. 

So every item of my plan was crowned with success. Our re- 
united life was more than all that we had looked forward to. 
Content and joy went with us as the wheels of the two carts went 
round, and the same stopi^ed with us when the two carts stopped. 
I was as pleased and as proud as a Pug-Dog with his muzzle 
black-leaded for a evening party, and his tiiil extra curled by 
machinery. 

But I had left something out of my calculations. Now, what 
had I left out 1 To help you to guess I'll say, a figure. Come. 
Make a guess and guess right. Nought? No. Nine? No. 
Eight? No. Seven? No. Six? No. Five? No. Four? 
No. Three ? No. Two ? No. One ? No. Now I'll tell you 
what I'll do with you. I'll say it's another sort of figure alto- 
gether. There. Why then, says you, it's a mortal figure. No, 
nor yet a mortal figure. By such means you get yourself penned 
into a corner, and you can't help guessing a immoi'tdl figure. 
That's about it. Why didn't you say so sooner ? 

Yes. It was a immortal figure that I had altogether left out of 
my calculations. Neither man's, nor woman's, but a child's. Girl's 
or boy's ? Boy's. " I, says the sparrow, with my bow and arrow." 
Now you have got it. 

We were down at Lancaster, and I had done two nights more 
than fair average business (though I cannot in honour recommend 
them as a quick audience) in the open square tliere, near the end 
of the street where Mr. Sly's King's Arms and Royal Hotel stands. 
Mini's travelling giant, otherwise Pickleson, happened at the self- 
same time to be trying it on in the town. The genteel lay was 
adopted with him. No hint of a van. Green baize alcove leading 
up to Pickleson in a Auction Room. Printed poster, " Free list 
suspended, with the exception of that proud boast of an enlight- 
ened country, a free press. Schools admitted by private arrange- 
ment. Nothing to raise a blush in the cheek of youth or shock 
the most fastidious." Mim swearing most horrible and terrific, in 
a pink calico pay-place, at the slackness of the public. Serious 
handbill in the shops, importing that it was all but impossible to 
come to a right understanding of the history of David without 
seeing Pickleson. 

I went to the Auction Room in question, and I found it entirely 
empty of everything but echoes and mouldiness, with the single 
exception of Pickleson on a piece of red drugget. This suited my 



442 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

purpose, as I wanted a private and confidential word with him, 
which was : " Picklesou. Owing much happiness to you, I put 
you in my will for a fypunnote ; but, to save trouble, here's four- 
punten down, which may equally suit your views, and let us so 
conclude the transaction." Pickleson, who up to that remark had 
had the dejected appearance of a long Roman rushlight that 
couldn't anyhow get lighted, brightened up at his top extremity, 
and made his acknowledgments in a way which (for him) was 
parliamentary eloquence. He likewise did add, that, having 
ceased to draw as a Roman, Mim had made proposals for his going 
in as a conwerted Indian Giant worked upon by The Dairyman's 
Daughter. This, Pickleson, having no acquaintance with the tract 
named after that young woman, and not being willing to couple 
gag with his serious views, had declined to do, thereby leading to 
words and the total stoppage of the unfortunate young man's beer. 
All of which, during the whole of the interview, was confirmed by 
the ferocious growling of Mim down below in the pay-place, which 
shook the giant like a leaf 

But what was to the present point in the remarks of the travel- 
ling giant, otherwise Pickleson, was this: "Doctor Marigold," — 
I give his words without a hope of conweying their feebleness, — 
" who is the strange young man that hangs about your carts ? " 
— " The strange young man ? " I gives him back, thinking that 
he meant her, and his languid circulation had dropped a syllable. 
"Doctor," he returns, with a pathos calculated to draw a tear 
from even a manly eye, " I am weak, but not so weak yet as that 
I don't know my words. I repeat them, Doctor. The strange 
young man." It then appeared that Pickleson, being forced to 
stretch his legs (not that they wanted it) only at times when he 
couldn't be seen for nothing, to wit in the dead of the night and 
towards daybreak, had twice seen hanging about my carts, in that 
same town of Lancaster where I had been only two nights, this 
same unknown young man. 

It put me rather out of sorts. What it meant as to particulars 
I no more foreboded then than you forebode now, but it put me 
rather out of sorts. Howsoever, I made light of it to Pickleson, 
and I took leave of Pickleson, advising him to spend his legacy in 
getting up his stamina, and to continue to stand by his religion. 
Towards morning I kept a look out for the strange young man, 
and — what was more — I saw the strange young man. He was 
well dressed and well looking. He loitered very nigh my carts, 
watching them like as if he was taking care of them, and soon 
after daybreak turned and went away. I sent a hail after him, 
but he never started or looked round, or took the smallest notice. 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 443 

We left Lancaster within an hour or two, on our way towards 
CarUsle. Next morning, at daybreak, I looked out again for the 
strange young man. I did not see him. But next morning I 
looked out again, and there he was once more. I sent another hail 
after him, but as before he gave not the slightest sign of being 
anyways disturbed. This put a thought into my head. Acting 
on it I watched him in different manners and at different times not 
necessary to enter into, till I found that this strange young man 
was deaf and dumb. 

The discovery turned me over, because I knew that a part of 
that establishment where she had been was allotted to young men 
(some of them well off), and I thought to myself, " If she favours 
him, where am I ? and where is all that I have worked and planned 
for 1 " Hoiking — I must confess to the selfishness — that she 
might Jiot favour him, I set myself to find out. At last I was by 
accident present at a meeting between them in the open air, look- 
ing on leaning behind a fir-tree without their knowing of it. It 
was a moving meeting for all the three jDarties concerned. I knew 
every syllable that passed between them as well as they did. I 
listened with my eyes, which had come to be as quick and true with 
deaf and dumb conversation as my ears with the talk of people that 
can speak. He was a going out to China as clerk in a merchant's 
house, which his father had been before him. He was in circum- 
stances to keep a wife, and he wanted her to marry him and go 
along with him. She persisted, no. He asked if she didn't love 
him. Yes, she loved him dearly, dearly ; but she could never dis- 
appoint her beloved, good, noble, generous, and I-don't-know-what- 
all father (meaning me, the Cheap Jack in the sleeved waistcoat) 
and she would stay with him, Heaven bless him ! though it was to 
break her heart. Then she cried most bitterly, and that made up 
my mind. 

While my mind had been in an unsettled state about her favour- 
ing this young man, I had felt that unreasonable towards Pickleson, 
that it was well for him he had got his legacy down. For I often 
thought, "If it hadn't been for this same weak-minded giant, I 
might never have come to trouble my head and wex my soul about 
the young man." But, once that I knew she loved him, — once 
that I had seen her weep for him, — it was a different thing. I 
made it right in my mind with Pickleson on the spot, and I shook 
myself together to do what was right by all. 

She had left the young man by that time (for it took a few min- 
utes to get me thoroughly well shook together), and the young man 
was leaning against another of the fir-trees, — of which there was a 
cluster, — with his face upon his arm. I touched him on the back. 



444 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

Looking up and seeing me, he says, in our deaf-and-dumb talk, 
"Do not be angry." 

" I am not angry, good boy. I am your friend. Come with 
me." 

I left him at the foot of the steps of the Library Cart, and I 
went up alone. She was drying her eyes. 

"You have been crying, my dear." 

"Yes, father." 

"Why?" 

"A headache." 

"Not a heartache?" 

"I said a headache, father." 

" Doctor Marigold must prescribe for that headache." 

She took up the book of my Prescriptions, and held it up with a 
forced smile ; but seeing me keep still and look earnest, she softly 
la-id it down again, and her eyes were veiy attentive. 

"The Prescription is not there, Sophy." 

"Where is it?" 

" Here, my dear." 

I brought her young husband in, and I put her hand in his, and 
my only farther words to both of them were these : " Doctor Mari- 
gold's last Prescription. To be taken for life." After which I 
bolted. 

When the wedding come off, I mounted a coat (blue, and bright 
buttons), for the first and last time in all my days, and I give 
Sophy away with my own hand. There were only us three and 
the gentleman who had had charge of her for those two years. I 
give the wedding dinner of four in the Library Cart. Pigeon-pie, 
a leg of pickled pork, a pair of fowls, and suitable garden stuff. 
The best of drinks. I give them a speech, and the gentleman give 
us a speech, and all our jokes told, and the whole went off like a 
sky-rocket. In the course of the entertainment I explained to 
Sophy that I should keep the Library Cart as my living-cart when 
not upon the road, and that I should keep all her books for her just 
as they stood, till she come back to claim them. So she went to 
China with her young husband, and it was a parting sorrowful and 
heavy, and I got the boy I had another service ; and so as of old, 
when my child and wife were gone, I went plodding along alone, 
with my whip over my shoulder, at the old horse's head. 

Sophy wrote me many letters, and I wrote her many letters. 
About the end of the first year she sent me one in an unsteady 
hand: "Dearest father, not a week ago I had a darling little 
daughter, but I am so well that they let me write these words to 
you. Dearest and best father, I hope my child may not be deaf 



DOCTOE MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 445 

and dumb, but I do not yet know." When I wrote back, I hinted 
the question ; but as Sophy never answered that question, I felt it 
to be a sad one, and I never repeated it. For a long time our let- 
ters were regular, but then they got irregular, through Sophy's 
husband being moved to another station, and through my being 
always on the move. But Ave were in one another's thoughts, I 
was equally sure, letters or no letters. 

Five years, odd months, had gone since Sophy went away. I 
was still the King of the Cheap Jacks, and at a greater height of 
popularity than ever. I had had a first-rate a«tumn of it, and on 
the twenty-third of December, one thousand eight hundred and 
sixty-four, I found myself at Uxbridge, Middlesex, clean sold out. 
So I jogged up to London with the old horse, light and easy, to 
have my Christmas-eve and Christmas-day alone by the fire in the 
Library Cart, and then to buy a regular new stock of goods all 
round, to sell 'em again and get the money. 

I am a neat hand at cookery, and I'll tell you what I knocked 
up for my Christmas-eve dinner in the Library Cart. I knocked 
up a beefsteak-pudding for one, with two kidneys, a dozen oysters, 
and a couple of mushrooms thrown in. It's a pudding to put a 
man in good humour with everything, except the two bottom but- 
tons of his waistcoat. Having relished that pudding and cleared 
away, I turned the lamp low, and sat down by the light of the fire, 
watching it as it shone upon the backs of Soj^hy's books. 

Sophy's books so brought up Sophy's self, that I saw her touch- 
ing face quite plainly, before I dropped off dozing by the fire. 
This may be a reason why Sophy, with her deaf-and-dumb child in 
her arms, seemed to stand silent by me all through my nap. I 
was on the road, off the road, in all sorts of places. North and 
South and West and East, Winds liked best and winds liked least, 
Here and there and gone astray. Over the hills and far away, and 
still she stood silent by me, with her silent child in her arms. 
Even when I woke with a start, she seemed to vanish, as if she 
had stood by me in that very place only a single instant before. 

I had started at a real sound, and the sound was on the steps of 
the cart. It was the light hurried tread of a child, coming clamber- 
ing up. That tread of a child had once been so familiar to me, 
that for half a moment I believed I was a going to see a little 
ghost. 

But the touch of a real child was laid upon the outer handle of 
the door, and the handle turned, and the door opened a little way, 
and a real child peeped in. A bright little comely girl with large 
dark eyes. 

Looking full at me, the tiny creature took off her mite of a 



446 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

straw hat, and a quantity of dark curls fell all about her face. 
Then she opened her lips, and said in a pretty voice, 

" Grandfather ! " 

" Ah, my God ! " I cries out. " She can speak ! " 

"Yes, dear grandfather. And I am to ask you whether there 
was ever any one that I remind you of?" 

In a moment Sophy was round my neck, as well as the child, 
and her husband was a wringing my hand with his face hid, and 
we all had to shake ourselves together before we could get over it. 
And when we did begin to get over it, and I saw the pretty child 
a talking, pleased and quick and eager and busy, to her mother, in 
the signs that I had first taught her mother, the happy and yet 
pitying tears fell rolling down my face. 



Chapter III. 

TO BE TAKEN WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. 

I HAVE always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among 
persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting their 
own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange 
sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in 
such wise would find no parallel or response in a listener's internal 
life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveller, 
who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of 
a sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it ; but the same 
traveller, having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of 
thought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental impres- 
sion, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it. To this 
reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which such subjects 
are involved. We do not habitually communicate our experiences 
of these subjective things as we do our experiences of objective 
creation. The consequence is, that the general stock of experience 
in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in respect of 
being miserably imperfect. 

In what I am going to relate, I have no intention of setting up, 
opposing, or supporting, any theory whatever. I know the history 
of the Bookseller of Berlin, I have studied the case of the wife of a 
late Astronomer Royal as related by Sir David Brewster, and I 
have followed the minutest details of a much more remarkable case 
of Spectral Illusion occurring within my private circle of friends. 
It may be necessary to state as to this last, that the sufi'erer (a 
lady) was in no degree, however distant, related to me. A mistaken 
assumption on that head might suggest an explanation of a part of 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 447 

my own case, — but only a part, — which would be wholly without 
foundation. It cannot be referred to my inheritance of any devel- 
oped peculiarity, nor had I ever before any at all similar experience, 
nor have I ever had any at all similar experience since. 

It does not signify how many years ago, or how few, a certain 
murder was committed in England, which attracted great attention. 
We hear more than enough of murderers as they rise in succession 
to their atrocious eminence, and I would bury the memory of this 
particular brute, if I could, as his body was buried, in Newgate 
Jail. I purposely abstain from giving any- direct clue to the 
criminal's individuality. 

When the murder was first discovered, no suspicion fell — or I 
ought rather to say, for I cannot be too precise in my facts, it was 
nowhere publicly hinted that any suspicion fell — on the man who 
was afterwards brought to trial. As no reference was at that time 
made to him in the newspapers, it is obviously impossible that any 
description of him can at that time have been given in the news- 
papers. It is essential that this fact be remembered. 

Unfolding at breakfast my morning paper, containing the account 
of that first discovery, I found it to be deeply interesting, and I read 
it with close attention. I read it twice, if not three times. The 
discovery had been made in a bedroom, and, when I laid down the 
paper, I was aware of a flash — rush — flow — I do not know what 
to call it, — no word I can find is satisfactorily descriptive, — in 
which I seemed to see that bedroom passing through my room, like 
a picture impossibly painted on a running river. Though almost 
instantaneous in its passing, it was perfectly clear ; so clear that I 
distinctly, and with a sense of relief, observed the absence of the 
dead body from the bed. 

It was in no romantic place that I had this curious sensation, but 
in chambers in Piccadilly, very near to the corner of Saint James's- 
street. It was entirely new to me. I was in my easy-chair at the 
moment, and the sensation was accompanied with a peculiar shiver 
which started the chair from its position. (But it is to be noted 
that the chair ran easily on castors.) I went to one of the windows 
(there are two in the room, and the room is on the second floor) to 
refresh my eyes with the moving objects down in Piccadilly. It 
was a bright autumn morning, and the street was sparkling and 
cheerful. The wind was high. As I looked out, it brought down 
from the Park a quantity of fallen leaves, which a gust took, and 
whirled into a spiral pillar. As the pillar fell and the leaves dis- 
persed, I saw two men on the opposite side of the way, going from 
West to East. They were one behind the other. The foremost 
man often looked back over his shoulder. The second man followed 



448 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

him, at a distance of some thirty paces, with his right hand menac- 
ingly raised. First, the singularity and steadiness of this threaten- 
ing gesture in so public a thoroughfare attracted my attention ; 
and next, the more remarkable circumstance that nobody heeded it. 
Both men threaded their way among the other passengers with 
a smoothness hardly consistent even with the action of walking on 
a pavement; and no single creature, that I could see, gave them 
place, touched them, or looked after them. In passing before my 
windows, they both stared up at me. I saw their two faces very 
distinctly, and I knew that I could recognise them anywhere. Not 
that I had consciously noticed anything very remarkable in either 
face, except that the man who went first had an unusually lowering 
appearance, and that the face of the man who followed him was of 
the colour of impure wax. 

I am a bachelor, and my valet and his wife constitute my whole 
establishment. My occupation is in a certain Branch Bank, and I 
wish that my duties as head of a Department were as light as they 
are popularly supposed to be. They kept me in town that autumn, 
when I stood in need of change. I was not ill, but I was not well. 
My reader is to make the most that can be reasonably made of my 
feeling jaded, having a depressing sense upon me of a monotonous 
life, and being " slightly dyspeptic." I am assured by my renowned 
doctor that my real state of health at that time justifies no stronger 
description, and I quote his own from his written answer to my 
request for it. 

As the circumstances of the murder, gradually unravelling, took 
stronger and stronger possession of the public mind, I kept them 
away from mine by knowing as little about them as was possible 
in the midst of the universal excitement. But I knew that a 
verdict of Wilful Murder had been found against the suspected 
murderer, and that he had been committed to Newgate for trial. 
I also knew that his trial had been postponed over one Sessions of 
the Central Criminal Court, on the ground of general prejudice and 
want of time for the preparation of the defence. I may further 
have known, but I believe I did not, when, or about when, the 
Sessions to which his trial stood postponed would come on. 

My sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room, are all on one floor. 
With the last there is no communication but through the bedroom. 
True, there is a door in it, once communicating with the staircase ; 
but a part of the fitting of my bath has been — and had then been 
for some years — fixed across it. At the same period, and as a 
part of the same arrangement, the door had been nailed up and 
canvassed over. 

I was standing in my bedroom late one night, giving some direc- 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 449 

tions to my servant before he went to bed. My face was towards 
the only available door of communication with the dressing-room, 
and it was closed. My servant's back was towards that door. 
While I was speaking to him, I saw it open, and a man look in, 
who very earnestly and mysteriously beckoned to me. That man 
was the man who had gone second of the two along Piccadilly, and 
whose face was of the colour of impure wax. 

The figure, having beckoned, drew back, and closed the door. 
With no longer pause than was made by my crossing the bedroom, 
I opened the dressing-room door, and looked in. I had a lighted 
candle already in my hand. I felt no inward expectation of seeing 
the figure in the dressing-room, and I did not see it there. 

Conscious that my servant stood amazed, I turned round to him, 
and said: "Derrick, could you believe that in my cool senses I 
fancied I saw a — " As I there laid my hand upon his breast, 
with a sudden start he trembled violently, and said, " Lord, yes, 
sir ! A dead man beckoning ! " 

Now I do not believe that this John Derrick, my trusty and 
attached servant for more than twenty years, had any impression 
whatever of having seen any such figure, until I touched him. 
The change in him was so startling, when I touched him, that I 
fully believe he derived his impression in some occult manner from 
me at that instant. 

I bade John Derrick bring some brandy, and I gave him a 
dram, and was glad to take one myself. Of what had preceded 
that night's phenomenon, I told him not a single word. Reflect- 
ing on it, I was absolutely certain that I had never seen that face 
before, except on the one occasion in Piccadilly. Comparing its 
expression when beckoning at the door with its expression when it 
had stared up at me as I stood at my window, I came to the con- 
clusion that on the first occasion it had sought to fasten itself upon 
my memory, and that on the second occasion it had made sure of 
being immediately remembered. 

I was not very comfortable that night, though I felt a certainty, 
difficult to explain, that the figure would not return. At daylight 
I fell into a heavy sleep, from which I was awakened by John 
Derrick's coming to my bedside with a paper in his hand. 

This paper, it appeared, had been the subject of an altercation 
at the door between its bearer and my servant. It was a sum- 
mons to me to serve upon a Jury at the forthcoming Sessions of 
the Central Criminal Court at the Old Bailey. I had never before 
been summoned on such a Jury, as John Derrick well knew. He 
believed — I am not certain at this hour whether with reason or 
otherwise — that that class of Jurors were customarily chosen on a 

2g 



450 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

lower qualification than mine, and he had at first refused to accept 
the summons. The man who served it had taken the matter very 
coolly. He had said that my attendance or non-attendance was 
nothing to him ; there the summons was ; and I should deal with 
it at my own peril, and not at his. 

For a day or two I was undecided whether to respond to this 
call, or take no notice of it. I was not conscious of the slightest 
mysterious bias, influence, or attraction, one way or other. Of 
that I am as strictly sure as of every other statement that I make 
here. Ultimately I decided, as a break in the monotony of my 
life, that I would go. 

The appointed morning was a raw morning in the month of 
November. There was a dense brown fog in Piccadilly, and it 
became positively black and in the last degree oppressive East of 
Temple Bar. I found the passages and staircases of the Court- 
House flaringly lighted with gas, and the Court itself similarly 
illuminated. I think that, until I was conducted by officers into 
the Old Court and saw its crowded state, I did not know that the 
Murderer was to be tried that day. I thinl: that, until I was so 
helped into the Old Court with considerable difficulty, I did not 
know into which of the two Courts sitting my summons would 
take me. But this must not be received as a positive assertion, 
for I am not completely satisfied in my mind on either point. 

I took my seat in the place appropriated to Jurors in waiting, 
and I looked about the Court as well as I could through the cloud 
of fog and breath that was heavj' in it. I noticed the black 
vapour hanging like a murky curtain outside the great windows, 
and I noticed the stifled sound of wheels on the straw or tan that 
was littered in the street; also, the hum of the people gathered 
there, which a shrill whistle, or a louder song or hail than the rest, 
occasionally pierced. Soon afterwards the Judges, two in number, 
entered, and took their seats. The buzz in the Court was awfully 
hushed. The direction was given to put the Murderer to the bar. 
He appeared there. And in that same instant I recognised in him 
the first of the two men who had gone down Piccadilly. 

If my name had been called then, I doubt if I could have 
answered to it audibly. But it was called about sixth or eighth 
in the panel, and I was by that time able to say, " Here ! " Now, 
observe. As I stepped into the box, the prisoner, who had been 
looking on attentively, but with no sign of concern, became violently 
agitated, and beckoned to his attorney. The prisoner's wish to 
challenge me was so manifest, that it occasioned a pause, during 
which the attorney, with his hand upon the dock, whispered with 
his client, and shook his head. I afterwards had it from that 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 451 

gentleman, that the prisoner's first affrighted ^yords to him were, 
^^ At all hazards, challenge that man!^^ But that, as he would 
give no reason for it, and admitted that he had not even known 
my name until he heard it called and I appeared, it was not done. 

Both on the ground already explained, that I wish to avoid 
reviving the unwholesome memory of that Murderer, and also be- 
cause a detailed account of his long trial is by no means indispen- 
sable to my narrative, I shall confine myself closely to such incidents 
in the ten days and nights during which we, the Jury, were kept 
together, as directly bear on my own curious personal experience. 
It is in that, and not in the Murderer, that I seek to interest my 
reader. It is to that, and not to a page of the Newgate Calendar, 
that I beg attention. 

I was chosen Foreman of the Jury. On the second morning of 
the trial, after evidence had been taken for two hours (I heard the 
church clocks strike), happening to cast my eyes over my brother 
jurymen, I found an inexplicable difficulty in counting them. I 
counted them several times, yet always with the same difficulty. 
In short, I made them one too many. 

I touched the brother juryman whose place was next me, and I 
whispered to him, " Oblige me by counting us." He looked sur- 
prised by the request, but turned his head and counted. "Why," 
says he, suddenly, " we are Thirt — ; but no, it's not possible. No. 
We are twelve." 

According to my counting that day, we were always right in 
detail, but in the gross we were always one too many. There was 
no appearance — no figure — to account for it; but I had now 
an inward foreshadowing of the figure that was surely coming. 

The Jury were housed at the London Tavern. We all slept in 
one large room on separate tables, and we were constantly in the 
charge and under the eye of the officer sworn to hold us in safe- 
keeping. I see no reason for suppressing the real name of that 
officer. He was intelligent, highly polite, and obliging, and (I was 
glad to hear) much respected in the City. He had an agreeable 
presence, good eyes, enviable black whiskers, and a fine sonorous 
voice. His name was Mr. Harker. 

When we turned into our twelve beds at night, Mr. Harker's bed 
was drawn across the door. On the night of the second day, not 
being disposed to lie down, and seeing Mr. Harker sitting on his 
bed, I went and sat beside him, and offered him a pinch of snuff. 
As Mr. Harker's hand touched mine in taking it from my box, a 
peculiar shiver crossed him, and he said, " Who is this % " 

Following Mr. Harker's eyes, and looking along the room, I 
saw again the figure I expected, — the second of the two men who 



452 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

had gone down Piccadilly. I rose, and advanced a few steps ; then 
stopped, and looked round at Mr. Harker. He was quite uncon- 
cerned, laughed, and said in a pleasant way, " I thought for a mo- 
ment we had a thirteenth juryman, without a bed. But I see it is 
the moonlight." 

Making no revelation to Mr. Harker, but inviting him to take a 
walk with me to the end of the room, I watched what the figure 
did. It stood for a few moments by the bedside of each of my 
eleven brother jurymen, close to the pillow. It always went to the 
right-hand side of the bed, and always passed out crossing the foot 
of the next bed. It seemed, from the action of the head, merely to 
look down pensively at each recumbent figure. It took no notice 
of me, or of my bed, which was that nearest to Mr, Harker's. It 
seemed to go out where the moonlight came in, through a high 
window, as by an aerial flight of stairs. 

Next morning at breakfast, it appeared that everybody present 
had dreamed of the murdered man last night, except myself and 
Mr. Harker. 

I now felt as convinced that the second man who had gone down 
Piccadilly was the murdered man (so to speak), as if it had been 
borne into my comprehension by his immediate testimony. But 
even this took place, and in a manner for which I was not at all 
prepared. 

On the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prosecution 
was drawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing 
from his bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards 
found in a hiding-place where the Murderer had been seen digging, 
was put in evidence. Having been identified by the witness under 
examination, it was handed up to the Bench, and thence handed 
down to be inspected by the Jury. As an ofiicer in a black gown 
was making his way with it across to me, the figure of the second 
man who had gone down Piccadilly impetuously started from the 
crowd, caught the miniature from the ofiicer, and gave it to me with 
his own hands, at the same time saying, in a low and hollow tone, 
— before I saw the miniature, which was in a locket, — " / was 
younger then, and my face was not then drained of hlood.^' It 
also came between me and the brother juiyman to whom I would 
have given the miniature, and between him and the brother juryman 
to whom he would have given it, and so passed it on through the 
whole of our number, and back into my possession. Not one of 
them, however, detected this. 

At table, and generally when we were shut up together in Mr. 
Harker's custody, we had from the first naturally discussed the 
day's proceedings a good deal. On that fifth day, the case for the 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 453 

prosecution being closed, and we having that side of the question 
in a completed shape before us, our discussion was more animated 
and serious. Among our number was a vestryman, — the densest 
idiot I have ever seen at large, — who met the plainest evidence 
with the most preposterous objections, and who was sided with by 
two flabby parochial parasites; all the three impanelled from a dis- 
trict so delivered over to Fever that they ought to have been upon 
their own trial for five hundred Murders. When these mischievous 
blockheads were at their loudest, which was towards midnight, 
while some of us were already preparing for bed, I again saw the 
murdered man. He stood grimly behind them, beckoning to me. 
On my going towards them, and striking into the conversation, he 
immediately retired. This was the beginning of a separate series 
of appearances, confined to that long room in which ive were con- 
fined. Whenever a knot of my brother jurymen laid their heads 
together, I saw the head of the murdered man among theirs. When- 
ever their comparison of notes was going against him, he would 
solemnly and irresistibly beckon to me. 

It w^ould be borne in mind that down to the production of the 
miniature, on the fifth day of the trial, I had never seen the Ap- 
pearance in Court. Three changes occurred now that we entered 
on the case for the defence. Two of them I will mention together, 
first. The figure was now in Court continually, and it never there 
addressed itself to me, but always to the person who was speaking 
at the time. For instance : the throat of the murdered man had 
been cut straight across. In the opening speech for the defence, 
it was suggested that the deceased might have cut his own throat. 
At that very moment, the figure, with its throat in the dreadful 
condition referred to (this it had concealed before), stood at the 
speaker's elbow, motioning across and across its windpipe, now 
with the right hand, now with the left, vigorously suggesting to the 
speaker himself the impossibility of such a wound having been self- 
inflicted by either hand. For another instance : a witness to char- 
acter, a woman, deposed to the prisoner's being the most amiable of 
mankind. The figure at that instant stood on the floor before her, 
looking her full in the face, and pointing out the prisoner's evil 
countenance with an extended arm and an outstretched finger. 

The third change now to be added impressed me strongly as the 
most marked and striking of all. I do not theorise upon it ; I 
accurately state it, and there leave it. Although the Appearance 
was not itself perceived by those whom it addressed, its coming close 
to such persons was invariably attended by some trepidation or dis- 
turbance on their part. It seemed to me as if it were prevented, 
by laws to which I was not amenable, from fully revealing itself to 



454 DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 

others, and yet as if it could invisibly, dumbly, and darkly over- 
shadow their minds. When the leading counsel for the defence 
suggested that hypothesis of suicide, and the figure stood at the 
learned gentleman's elbow, frightfully sawing at its severed throat, 
it is undeniable that the counsel faltered in his speech, lost for a 
few seconds the thread of his ingenious discourse, wiped his fore- 
head with his handkerchief, and turned extremely pale. When the 
witness to character was confronted by the Appearance, her eyes 
most certainly did follow the direction of its pointed finger, and rest 
in great hesitation and trouble upon the prisoner's face. Two ad- 
ditional illustrations will sufl&ce. On the eighth day of the trial, 
after the pause which was every day made early in the afternoon 
for a few minutes' rest and refreshment, I came back into Court 
with the rest of the Jury some little time before the return of the 
Judges. Standing up in the box and looking about me, I thought 
the figure was not there, until, chancing to raise my eyes to the 
gallery, I saw it bending forward, and leaning over a very decent 
woman, as if to assure itself whether the Judges had resumed their 
seats or not. Immediately afterwards that woman screamed, fainted, 
and was carried out. So with the venerable, sagacious, and patient 
Judge who conducted the trial. When the case was over, and he 
settled himself and his papers to sum up, the murdered man, en- 
tering by the Judges' door, advanced to his Lordship's desk, and 
looked eagerly over his shoulder at the pages of his notes which he 
was turning. A change came over his Lordship's face ; his hand 
stopped ; the peculiar shiver, that I knew so well, passed over him ; 
he faltered, "Excuse me, gentlemen, for a few moments. I am 
somewhat oppressed by the vitiated air;" and did not recover until 
he had drunk a glass of water. 

Through all the monotony of six of those interminable ten days, 
— the same Judges and others on the bench, the same Murderer in 
the dock, the same lawyers at the table, the same tones of question 
and answer rising to the roof of the court, the same scratching of 
the Judge's pen, the same ushers going in and out, the same lights 
kindled at the same hour when there had been any natural light of 
day, the same foggy curtain outside the great windows when it was 
foggy, the same rain pattering and dripping when it was rainy, the 
same footmarks of turnkeys and prisoner day after day on the same 
sawdust, the same keys locking and unlocking the same heavy 
doors, — through all the wearisome monotony which made me feel 
as if I had been Foreman of the Jury for a vast period of time, and 
Piccadilly had flourished coevally with Babylon, the murdered man 
never lost one trace of his distinctness in my eyes, nor was he at 
any moment less distinct than anybody else. I must not omit, as 



DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S PRESCRIPTIONS. 455 

a matter of fact, that I never once saw the Appearance which I 
call by the name of the murdered man look at the Murderer. 
Again and again I wondered, " Why does he not ? " But he never 
did. 

Nor did he look at me, after the production of the miniature, 
until the last closing minutes of the trial arrived. We retired to 
consider, at seven minutes before ten at night. The idiotic vestry- 
man and his two parochial parasites gave us so much trouble that 
we twice returned into Court to beg to have certain extracts from 
the Judge's notes re-read. Nine of us had not the smallest doubt 
about those passages, neither, I believe, had any" one in the Court; 
the dunder-headed triumvirate, however, having no idea but obstruc- 
tion, disputed them for that very reason. At length we prevailed, 
and finally the Jury returned into Court at ten minutes past twelve. 

The murdered man at that time stood directly opposite the Jury- 
box, on the other side of the Court. As I took my place, his eyes 
rested on me with great attention ; he seemed satisfied, and slowly 
shook a great grey veil, which he carried on his arm for the first 
time, over his head and whole form. As I gave in our verdict, 
" Guilty," the veil collapsed, all was gone, and his place was empty. 

The Murderer, being asked by the Judge, according to usage, 
whether he had anything to say before .sentence of Death should 
be passed upon him, indistinctly nuittered something which was 
described in the leading newspapers of the following day as "a few 
rambling, incoherent, and half-audible words, in which he was 
understood to complain that he had not had a fair trial, because 
the Foreman of the Jury was prepossessed against him." The re- 
markable declaration that he really made was this : " J/y Lord^ I 
knew I ivas a doomed man, when the Foreman of my Jury came 
into the box. My Lord, I kneiv he would never let me off, because, 
before I ivas taken, he somehow got to my bedside in the night, 
woke me, and put a rope round my neck" 



456 MUGBY JUNCTION. 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 

IN FOUE CHAPTERS. 

Chapter I. 

BARBOX BROTHERS. 
I. 

" Guard ! What place is this ? " 

"Mugby Junction, sir." 

" A windy place ! " 

"Yes, it mostly is, sir." 

" And looks comfortless indeed ! " 

" Yes, it generally does, sir." 

" Is it a rainy night still 1 " 

" Pours, sir." 

" Open the door. I'll get out." 

"You'll have, sir," said the guard, glistening with drops of wet, 
and looking at the tearful face of his watch by the light of his lan- 
tern as the traveller descended, " three minutes here." 

"More, I think. — For I am not going on." 

" Thought you had a through ticket, sir 1 " 

" So I have, but I shall sacrifice the rest of it. I want my lug- 
gage." 

" Please to come to the van and point it out, sir. Be good enough 
to look very sharp, sir. Not a moment to spare." 

The guard hurried to the luggage van, and the traveller hurried 
after him. The guard got into it, and the traveller looked into it. 

" Those two large black portmanteaus in the corner where your 
light shines. Those are mine." 

" Name upon 'em, sir ? " 

" Barbox Brothers." 

" Stand clear, sir, if you please. One. Two. Eight ! " 

Lamp waved. Signal lights ahead already changing. Shriek 
from engine. Train gone. 

" Mugby Junction ! " said the traveller, pulling up the woollen 
muffler round his throat with both hands. " At past three o'clock 
of a tempestuous morning ! So ! " 

He spoke to himself. There was no one else to speak to. Per- 
haps, though there had been any one else to speak to, he would have 
preferred to speak to himself. Speaking to himself he spoke to a 




MUGBY JUNCTION. 



458 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

man within five years of fifty either way, who had turned grey too 
soon, Hke a neglected fire ; a man of pondering habit, brooding car- 
riage of the head, and suppressed internal voice ; a man with many 
indications on him of having been much alone. 

He stood unnoticed on the dreary platform, except by the rain 
and by the wind. Those two vigilant assailants made a rush at him. 
" Very well," said he, yielding. " It signifies nothing to me to what 
quarter I turn my face." 

Thus, at Mugby Junction, at past three o'clock of a tempestuous 
morning, the traveller went where the weather drove him. 

Not but what he could make a stand when he was so minded, 
for, coming to the end of the roofed shelter (it is of considerable ex- 
tent at Mugby Junction), and looking out upon the dark night, with 
a yet darker spirit-wing of storm beating its wild way through it, 
he faced about, and held his own as ruggedly in the difficult direc- 
tion as he had held it in the easier one. Thus, with a steady step, 
the traveller went up and down, up and down, up and down, seek- 
ing nothing and finding it. 

A place replete with shadowy shapes, this Mugby Junction in the 
black hours of the four-and-twenty. Mysterious goods trains, cov- 
ered with palls and gliding on like vast weird funerals, conveying 
themselves guiltily away from the presence of the few lighted lamps, 
as if their freight had come to a secret and unlawful end. Half- 
miles of coal pursuing in a Detective manner, following when they 
lead, stopping when they stop, backing when they back. Red-hot 
embers showering out upon the gi'ound, down this dark avenue, and 
down the other, as if torturing fires were being raked clear ; con- 
currently, shrieks and groans and grinds invading the ear, as if the 
tortured were at the height of their suff'ering. Iron -barred cages 
full of cattle jangling by midway, the drooping beasts with horns 
entangled, eyes frozen with terror, and mouths too : at least they 
have long icicles (or what seem so) hanging from their lips. Un- 
known languages in the air, conspiring in red, green, and white char- 
acters. An earthquake, accompanied with thunder and lightning, 
going up express to London. Now, all quiet, all rusty, wind and 
rain in possession, lamps extinguished, Mugby Junction dead and 
indistinct, with its robe drawn over its head, like Caesar. 

Now, too, as the belated traveller plodded up and down, a shad- 
owy train went by him in the gloom which was no other than the 
train of a life. From whatsoever intangible deep cutting or dark 
tunnel it emerged, here it came, unsummoned and unannounced, 
stealing upon him, and passing away into obscurity. Here mourn- 
fully went by a child who had never had a childhood or known a 
parent, inseparable from a youth with a bitter sense of his nameless- 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 459 

ness, coupled to a man the enforced business of whose best years 
had been distasteful and oppressive, linked to an ungrateful friend, 
dragging after him a woman once beloved. Attendant, with many 
a clank and wrench, were lumbering cares, dark meditations, huge 
dim disappointments, monotonous years, a long jarring line of the 
discords of a solitary and unhappy existence. 

" _ Yours, sir 1 " 

The traveller recalled his eyes from the waste into which they 
had been staring, and fell back a step or so under the abruptness, 
and perhaps the chance appropriateness, of the question. 

" Oh ! My thoughts were not here for the mopaent. Yes. Yes. 
Those two portmanteaus are mine. Are you a Porter ? " 

"On Porter's wages, sir. But I am Lamps.'* 

The traveller looked a little confused. 

" Who did you say you are ? " 

"Lamps, sir," showing an oily cloth in his hand, as further ex- 
planation. 

" Surely, surely. Is there any hotel or tavern here 1 " 

"Not exactly here, sir. There is a Refreshment Room here, 

but " Lamps, with a mighty serious look, gave his head a 

warning roll that plainly added — " but it's a blessed circumstance 
for you that it's not open." 

" You couldn't recommend it, I see, if it was available ? " 

" Ask your pardon, sir. If it was 1 " 

" Open ? " 

" It ain't my place, as a paid servant of the company, to give 
my opinion on any of the company's toepics," — he pronounced it 
more like toothpicks, — "beyond lamp-ile and cottons," returned 
Lamps in a confidential tone ; " but, speaking as a man, I wouldn't 
recommend my father (if he was to come to life again) to go and 
try how he'd be treated at the Refreshment Room. Not speaking 
as a man, no, I would not." 

The traveller nodded conviction. " I suppose I can put up in 
the town ? There is a town here ? " For the traveller (though a 
stay-at-home compared with most travellers) had been, like many 
others, carried on the steam winds and the iron tides through that 
Junction before, without having ever, as one might say, gone ashore 
there. 

" Oh yes, there's a town, sir ! Anyways, there's town enough 
to put up in. But," following the glance of the other at his lug- 
gage, " this is a very dead time of the night with us, sir. The 
deadest time. I might a'most call it our deadest and buriedest 
time." 

" No porters about ? " 



460 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

"Well, sir, you see," returned Lamps, confidential again, " they 
in general goes off" with the gas. That's how it is. And they 
seem to have overlooked you, through your walking to the furder 
end of the platform. But, in about twelve minutes or so, she may 
be up." 

" Who may be up ? " 

" The three forty-two, sir. She goes off" in a sidin' till the Up 
X passes, and then she " — here an air of hopeful vagueness per- 
vaded Lamps — " does all as lays in her power." 

"I doubt if I comprehend the arrangement." 

" I doubt if anybody do, sir. She's a Parliamentary, sir. And, 
you see, a Parliamentary, or a Skirmishun " 

" Do you mean an Excursion 1 " 

" That's it, sir. — A Parliamentary or a Skirmishun, she mostly 
doos go off" into a sidin'. But, when she can get a chance, she's 
whistled out of it, and she's whistled up into doin' all as," — 
Lamps again wore the air of a higlily sanguine man who hoped for 
the best, — "all as lays in her power." 

He then explained that porters on duty, being required to be in 
attendance on the Parliamentary matron in question, would doubt- 
less turn up with the gas. In the meantime, if the gentleman 
would not very much object to the smell of lamp-oil, and would 

accept the warmth of his little room The gentleman, being 

by this time very cold, instantly closed with the proposal. 

A greasy little cabin it was, suggestive, to the sense of smell, of 
a cabin in a Whaler. But there was a bright fire burning in its 
rusty grate, and on the floor there stood a v.ooden stand of newly 
trimmed and lighted lamps, ready for carriage service. They made 
a bright show, and their light, and the warmth, accounted for the 
popularity of the room, as borne witness to by many impressions 
of velveteen trousers on a form by the fire, and many rounded 
smears and smudges of stooping velveteen shoulders on the adja- 
cent wall. Various untidy shelves accommodated a quantity of 
lamps and oil-cans, and also a fragrant collection of what looked 
like the pocket-handkerchiefs of the whole lamp family. 

As Barbox Brothers (so to call the traveller on the warranty of 
his luggage) took his seat upon the form, and warmed his now 
ungloved hands at the fire, he glanced aside at a little deal desk, 
much blotched with ink, which his elbow touched. Upon it were 
some scraps of coarse paper, and a superannuated steel pen in very 
reduced and gritty circumstances. 

From glancing at the scraps of paper, he turned involuntarily to 
his host, and said, with some roughness : 

" Why, you are never a poet, man 1 " 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 461 

Lamps had certainly not the conventional appearance of one, as 
he stood modestly rubbing his squab nose with a handkerchief so 
exceedingly oily, that he might have been in the act of mistaking 
himself for one of his charges. He was a spare man of about the 
Barbox Brothers time of life, with his features whimsically drawn 
upward as if they were attracted by the roots of his hair. He had 
a peculiarly shining transparent complexion, probably occasioned 
by constant oleaginous application ; and his attractive hair, being 
cut short, and being grizzled, and standing straight up on* end as 
if it in its turn were attracted by some invisible magnet above it, 
the top of his head was not very unlike a lamprwick. 

"But, to be sure, it's no business of mine," said Barbox 
Brothers. "That was an impertinent observation on my part. 
Be what you like." 

"Some people, sir," remarked Lamps in a tone of apology, "are 
sometimes what they don't like." 

"Nobody knows that better than I do," sighed the other. "I 
have been what I don't like, all my life." 

"When I first took, sir," resumed Lamps, "to composing little 
Comic-Songs-like " 

Barbox Brothers eyed him with great disfavour. 

" — To composing little Comic-Songs-like — and what was more 
hard — to singing 'em afterwards," said Lamps, " it went against 
the grain at that time, it did indeed." 

Something that was not all oil here shining in Lamps's eye, 
Barbox Brothers withdrew his own a little disconcerted, looked at 
the fire, and put a foot on the top bar. "Why did you do it, 
then 1 " he asked after a short pause ; abruptly enough, but in a 
softer tone. " If you didn't want to do it, why did you do it 1 
Where did you sing them 1 Public-house 1 " 

To which Mr. Lamps returned the curious reply : "Bedside." 

At this moment, while the traveller looked at him for elucida- 
tion, Mugby Junction started suddenly, trembled violently, and 
opened its gas eyes. " She's got up ! " Lamps announced, excited. 
"What lays in her power is sometimes more, and sometimes less; 
but it's laid in her power to get up to-night, by George ! " 

The legend "Barbox Brothers," hi large white letters on two 
black surfaces, was very soon afterwards trundling on a truck 
through a silent street, and, when the owner of the legend had 
shivered on the pavement half an hour, what time the porter's 
knocks at the Inn Door knocked up the whole town first, and the 
Inn last, he groped his way into the close air of a shut-up house, 
and so groped between the sheets of a shut-up bed that seemed to 
have been expressly refrigerated for him when last made. 



462 MUGBY JUNCTION. 



II. 



"You remember me, Young Jackson?" 

"What do I remember if not you? You are my first remem- 
brance. It was you who told me that was my name. It was you 
who told me that on eveiy twentieth of December my life had a 
penitential anniversary in it called a birthday. I suppose the last 
communication was truer than the first ! " 

"What am I like, Young Jackson?" 

"You are like a blight all through the year to me. You hard- 
lined, thin-lipped, repressive, changeless woman with a wax mask 
on. You are like the Devil to me ; most of all when you teach 
me religious things, for you make me abhor them." 

" You remember me, Mr. Young Jackson ? " In another voice 
from another quarter. 

" Most gratefully, sir. You were the ray of hope and prosper- 
ing ambition in my life. When I attended your course, I believed 
that I should come to be a great healer, and I felt almost happy — 
even though I was still the one boarder in the house with that 
horrible mask, and ate and drank in silence and constraint with 
the mask before me, every day. As I had done every, every, every 
day, through my school-time and from my earliest recollection." 

"What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson?" 

"You are like a Superior Being to me. You are like Nature 
beginning to reveal herself to me. I hear you again, as one of the 
hushed crowd of young men kindling under the power of your pres- 
ence and knowledge, and you bring into my eyes the only exultant 
tears that ever stood in them." 

" You remember Me, Mr. Young Jackson ? " In a grating voice 
from quite another quarter. 

" Too well. You made your ghostly appearance in my life one 
day, and announced that its course was to be suddenly and wholly 
changed. You showed me which was my wearisome seat in the 
Galley of Barbox Brothers. (When they were, if they ever were, is 
unknown to me ; there was nothing of them but the name when I 
bent to the oar.) You told me what I was to do, and what to be 
paid; you told me afterwards, at intervals of years, when I was to 
sign for the Firm, when I became a partner, when I became the 
Firm. I know no more of it, or of myself." 

" What am I like, Mr. Young Jackson ? " 

"You are like my father, I sometimes think. You are hard 
enough and cold enough so to have brought up an acknowledged 
son. I see your scanty figure, your close brown suit, and your 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 463 

tight brown wig ; but you, too, wear a wax mask to your death. 
You never by a chance remove it — it never by a chance falls off 
— and I know no more of you." 

Throughout this dialogue, the traveller spoke to himself at his 
window in the morning, as he had spoken to himself at the Junc- 
tion overnight. And as he had then looked in the darkness, a 
man who had turned grey too soon, like a neglected fire : so he now 
looked in the sunlight, an ashier grey, like a fire which the bright- 
ness of the sun put out. 

The firm of Barbox Brothers had been some offshoot or irregular 
branch of the Public Notary and bill-broking tree. It had gained 
for itself a griping reputation before the days of Young Jackson, and 
the reputation had stuck to it and to him. As he had imperceptibly 
come into possession of the dim den up in the corner of a court off 
Lombard Street, on whose grimy windows the inscription Barbox 
Brothers had for many long years daily interposed itself between 
him and the sky, so he had insensibly found himself a personage 
held in chronic distrust, whom it was essential to screw tight to 
every transaction in which he engaged, whose word was never to 
be taken without his attested bond, whom all dealers with openly 
set up guards and wards against. This character had come upon 
him through no act of his own. It was as if the original Barbox 
had stretched himself down upon the office floor, and had thither 
caused to be conveyed Young Jackson in his sleep, and had there 
effected a metempsychosis and exchange of persons with him. The 
discovery — aided in its turn by the deceit of the only woman he 
had ever loved, and the deceit of the only friend he had ever made : 
who eloped from him to be married together — the discovery, so 
followed up, completed what his earliest rearing had begun. He 
shrank, abashed, within the form of Barbox, and lifted up his head 
and heart no more. 

But he did at last effect one great release in his condition. He 
broke the oar he plied so long, and he scuttled and sank the galley. 
He prevented the gradual retirement of an old conventional busi- 
ness from him, by taking the initiative and retiring from it. With 
enough to live on (though, after all, with not too much), he oblit- 
erated the firm of Barbox Brothers from the pages of the Post- 
Office Directory and the face of the earth, leaving nothing of it but 
its name on two portmanteaus. 

" For one must have some name in going about, for people to 
pick up," he explained to Mugby High Street, through the Inn 
window, " and that name at least was real once. Whereas, Young 
Jackson ! — Not to mention its being a sadly satirical misnomer 
for Old Jackson." 



464 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

He took up his hat and walked out, just in time to see, passing 
along on the opposite side of the way, a velveteen man, carrying 
his day's dinner in a small bundle that might have been larger 
without suspicion of gluttony, and pelting away towards the Junc- 
tion at a great pace. 

" There's Lamps ! " said Barbox Brothers. " And by the bye 



Ridiculous, surely, that a man so serious, so self-contained, and 
not yet three days emancipated from a routine of drudgery, should 
stand rubbing his chin in the street, in a brown study about Comic 
Songs. 

" Bedside ? " said Barbox Brothers testily. " Sings them at the 
bedside? Why at the bedside, unless he goes to bed drunk? 
Does, I shouldn't wonder. But it's no business of mine. Let me 
see. Mugby Junction, Mugby Junction. Where shall I go next ? 
As it came into my head last night when I woke from an uneasy 
sleep in the carriage and found myself here, I can go anywhere from 
here. Where shall I go? I'll go and look at the Junction by 
daylight. There's no hurry, and I may like the look of one Line 
better than another." 

But there were so many Lines. Gazing down upon them from 
a bridge at the Junction, it was as if the concentrating Companies 
formed a great Industrial Exhibition of the works of extraordinary 
ground spiders that spun iron. And then so many of the Lines 
went such wonderful ways, so crossing and curving among one 
another, that the eye lost them. And then some of them appeared 
to start with the fixed intention of going five hundred miles, and 
all of a sudden gave it up at an insignificant barrier, or turned off 
into a workshop. And then others, like intoxicated men, went a 
little way very straight, and surprisingly slued round and came 
back again. And then others were so chock-full of trucks of coal, 
others were so blocked with trucks of casks, others were so gorged 
with trucks of ballast, others were so set apart for wheeled objects 
like immense iron cotton-reels : while others were so bright and 
clear, and others were so delivered over to rust and ashes and idle 
wheelbarrows out of work, with their legs in the air (looking much 
like their masters on strike), that there was no beginning, middle, 
or end to the bewilderment. 

Barbox Brothers stood puzzled on the bridge, passing his right 
hand across the lines on his forehead, which multiplied while he 
looked down, as if the railway Lines were getting themselves photo- 
graphed on that sensitive plate. Then was heard a distant ringing 
of bells and blowing of whistles. Then, puppet-looking heads of 
men popped out of boxes in perspective, and popped in again. 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 465 

Then, prodigious wooden razors, set up on end, began shaving the 
atmosphere. Then, several locomotive engines in several directions 
began to scream and be agitated. Then, along one avenue a train 
came in. Then, along another two trains appeared that didn't 
come in, but stopped without. Then, bits of trains broke off. 
Then, a struggling horse became involved with them. Then, the 
locomotives shared the bits of trains, and ran away with the whole. 

" I have not made my next move much clearer by this. No 
hurry. No need to make up my mind to-day, or to-morrow, nor 
yet the day after. I'll take a walk." 

It fell out somehow (perhaps he meant it should) that the walk 
tended to the platform at which he had alighted, and to Lamps's 
room. But Lamps was not in his room. A pair of velveteen 
shoulders were adapting themselves to one of the impressions on 
the wall by Lamps's fire-place, but otherwise the room was void. 
In passing back to get out of the station again, he learnt the cause 
of this vacancy, by catching sight of Lamps on the opposite line 
of railway, skipping along the top of a train, from carriage to 
carriage, and catching lighted namesakes thrown up to him by a 
coadjutor. 

"He is busy. He has not much time for composing or singing 
Comic Songs this morning, I take it." 

The direction he pursued now was into the country, keeping very 
near to the side of one great Line of railway, and within easy view 
of others. " I have half a mind," he said, glancing around, " to 
settle the question from this point, by saying, ' I'll take this set 
of rails, or that, or t'other, and stick to it.' They separate them- 
selves from the confusion, out here, and go their ways." 

Ascending a gentle hill of some extent, he came to a few cot- 
tages. There, looking about him as a very reserved man might 
who had never looked about him in his life before, he saw some 
six or eight young children come merrily trooping and whooping 
from one of the cottages, and disperse. But not until they had 
all turned at the little garden-gate, and kissed their hands to a face 
at the upper window : a low window enough, although the upper, 
for the cottage had but a story of one room above the ground. 

Now, that the children should do this was nothing; but that 
they should do this to a face lying on the sill of the open window, 
turned towards them in a horizontal position, and apparently only 
a face, was something noticeable. He looked up at the window 
again. Could only see a very fragile, though a very bright face, 
lying on one cheek on the window-sill. The delicate smiling face 
of a girl or woman. Framed in long bright brown hair, round 
which was tied a light blue band or fillet, passing under the chin. 

2h 



466 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

He walked on, turned back, passed the window again, shyly- 
glanced up again. No change. He struck off by a winding branch- 
road at the top of the hill — which he must otherwise have de- 
scended — kept the cottages in view, worked his way round at a 
distance so as to come out once more into the main road, and be 
obliged to pass the cottages again. The face still lay on the win- 
dow-sill, but not so much inclined towards him. And now there 
were a pair of delicate hands too. They had the action of perform- 
ing on some musical instrument, and yet it jjroduced no sound that 
reached his ears. 

"Mugby Junction must be the maddest place in England," 
said Barbox Brothers, pursuing his way down the hill. " The 
first thing I find here is a Railway Porter who composes comic 
songs to sing at his bedside. The second thing I find here is a face, 
and a pair of hands playing a musical instrument that do7iH play ! " 

The day was a fine bright day in the early beginning of Novem- 
ber, the air was clear and inspiriting, and the landscape was rich 
in beautiful colours. The prevailing colours in the court off" Lom- 
bard Street, London city, had been few and sombre. Sometimes, 
when the weather elsewhere was very bright indeed, the dwellers 
in those tents enjoyed a pepper and-salt-coloured day or two, but 
their atmosphere's usual wear was slate or snuff" coloured. 

He relished his walk so well that he repeated it next day. He 
was a little earlier at the cottage than on the day before, and he 
could hear the children up-stairs singing to a regular measure, and 
clapping out the time with their hands. 

" Still, there is no sound of any musical instrument," he said, 
listening at the corner, " and yet I saw the performing hands again 
as I came by. What are the children singing ? Why, good Lord, 
they can never be singing the multiplication table 1 " 

They were, though, and with infinite enjoyment. The mysteri- 
ous face had a voice attached to it, which occasionally led or set 
the children right. Its musical cheerfulness was delightful. The 
measure at length stopped, and was succeeded by a murmuring of 
young voices, and then by a short song which he made out to be 
about the current month of the year, and about what work it 
yielded to the labourers in the fields and farmyards. Then there 
was a stir of little feet, and the children came trooping and whoop- 
ing out, as on the previous day. And again, as on the previous 
day, they all turned at the garden-gate, and kissed their hands 
— evidently to the face on the window-sill, though Barbox Brothers 
from his retired post of disadvantage at the corner could not see it. 

But, as the children dispersed, he cut off one small straggler — 
a brown-faced boy with flaxen hair — and said to him : 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 467 

" Come here, little one. Tell me, whose house is that ? " 

The child, with one swarthy arm held up across his eyes, half in 
shyness, and half ready for defence, said from behind the inside of 
his elbow : 

"Phoebe's." 

"And who," said Barbox Brothers, quite as much embarrassed 
by his part in the dialogue as the child could possibly be by his, 
"is Phoebe?" 

To which the child made answer : " Why, Phoebe, of course." 

The small but sharp observer had eyed his questioner closely, 
and had taken his moral measure. He lowered his guard, and 
rather assumed a tone with him : as having discovered him to be 
an unaccustomed person in the art of polite conversation. 

" Phoebe," said the child, " can't be anybobby else but Phoebe. 
Can she?" 

" No, I suppose not." 

" Well," returned the child, " then why did you ask me ? " 

Deeming it prudent to shift his ground, Barbox Brothers took 
up a new position. 

"What do you do there? Up there in that room where the 
open window is. What do you do there?" 

"Cool," said the child. 

"Eh?" 

" Co-o-ol," the child repeated in a louder voice, lengthening out 
the word with a fixed look and great emphasis, as much as to say : 
" What's the use of your having grown up, if you're such a donkey 
as not to understand me ? " 

" Ah ! School, school," said Barbox Brothers. " Yes, yes, yes. 
And Phoebe teaches you ? " 

The child nodded. 

" Good boy." 

" Tound it out, have you ? " said the child. 

" Yes, I have found it out. What would you do with twopence, 
if I gave it you ? " 

"Pendit." 

The knock-down promptitude of this reply leaving him not a 
a leg to stand upon, Barbox Brothers produced the twopence with 
great lameness, and withdrew in a state of humiliation. 

But, seeing the face on the window-sill as he passed the cottage, 
he acknowledged its presence there with a gesture, which was not 
a nod, not a bow, not a removal of his hat from his head, but was 
a diffident compromise between or struggle with all three. The 
eyes in the face seemed amused, or cheered, or both, and the lips 
modestly said: "Good day to you, sir." 



468 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

" I find I must stick for a time to Mugby Junction," said Barbox 
Brothers with mucli gravity, after once more stopping on his return 
road to look at the Lines where they went their several ways so 
quietly. " I can't make up my mind yet which iron road to take. 
In fact, I must get a little accustomed to the Junction before I can 
decide." 

So, he announced at the Inn that he was "going to stay on for 
the present," and improved his acquaintance with the Junction that 
night, and again next morning, and again next night and morning : 
going down to the station, mingling with the people there, looking 
about him down all the avenues of railway, and beginning to take 
an interest in the incomings and outgoings of the trains. At first, 
he often put his head into Lamps's little room, but he never found 
Lamps there. A pair or two of velveteen shoulders he usually 
found there, stooping over the fire, sometimes in connection with 
a clasp-knife and a piece of bread and meat; but the answer to 
his inquiry, "Where's Lamps?" was, either that he was "t'other 
side the line," or, that it was his off-time, or (in the latter case) 
his own personal introduction to another Lamps who was not his 
lamps. However, he was not so desperately set upon seeing Lamps 
now, but he bore the disappointment. Nor did he so wholly devote 
himself to his severe application to the study of Mugby Junction as 
to neglect exercise. On the contrary, he took a walk every day, 
and always the same walk. But the weather turned cold and wet 
again, and the window was never open. 

III. 

At length, after a lapse of some days, there came another streak 
of fine bright hardy autumn weather. It was a Saturday. The 
window was open, and the children were gone. Not surprising, 
this, for he had patiently watched and waited at the corner until 
they ivere gone. 

" Good day," he said to the face ; absolutely getting his hat clear 
off his head this time. 

" Good day to you, sir." 

" I am glad you have a fine sky again to look at." 

" Thank you, sir. It is kind of you." 

" You are an invalid, I fear 1 " 

" No, sir. I have very good health." 

" But are you not always lying down 1 " 

" Oh yes, I am always lying down, because I cannot sit up ! 
But I am not an invalid." 

The laughing eyes seemed highly to enjoy his great mistake. 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 469 

"Would you mind taking the trouble to come in, sir? There 
is a beautiful view from this window. And you would see that I 
am not at all ill^ — -being so good as to care." 

It was said to help him, as he stood irresolute, but evidently 
desiring to enter, with his diffident hand on the latch of the garden- 
gate. It did help him, and he went in. 

The room up-stairs was a very clean white room with a low roof. 
Its only inmate lay on a couch that brought her face to a level 
with the window. The couch was white too ; and her simple dress 
or wrapper being light blue, like the band around her hair, she had 
an ethereal look, and a fanciful appearance of 'lying among clouds. 
He felt that she instinctively perceived him to be by habit a down- 
cast, taciturn man ; it was another help to him to have established 
that understanding so easily, and got it over. 

There was an awkward constraint upon him, nevertheless, as he 
touched her hand, and took a chair at the side of her couch. 

"I see now," he began, not at all fluently, "how you occupy 
your hand. Only seeing you from the path outside, I thought you 
were playing upon something." 

She was engaged in very nimbly and dexterously making lace. 
A lace-pillow lay upon her breast ; and the quick movements and 
changes of her hands upon it, as she worked, had given them the 
action he had misinterpreted. 

"That is curious," she answered with a bright smile. "For I 
often fancy, myself, that I play tunes while I am at work." 

" Have you any musical knowledge 1 " 

She shook her head. 

" I think I could pick out tunes, if I had any instrument, which 
could be made as handy to me as my lace-pillow. But I dare say 
I deceive myself. At all events, I shall never know." 

"You have a musical voice. Excuse me; I have heard you 
sing." 

"With the children ?" she answered, slightly colouring. "Oh 
yes. I sing with the dear children, if it can be called singing." 

Barbox Brothers glanced at the two small forms in the room, 
and hazarded the speculation that she was fond of children, and 
that she was learned in new systems of teaching them ? 

"Very fond of them," she said, shaking her head again; "but 
I know nothing of teaching, beyond the interest I have in it, and 
the pleasure it gives me when they learn. Perhaps your overhear- 
ing my little scholars sing some of their lessons has led you so far 
astray as to think me a grand teacher 1 Ah ! I thought so ! No, 
I have only read and been told about that system. It seemed so 
pretty and pleasant, and to treat them so like the merry Robins 



470 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

they are, that I took up with it in my little way. You don't need 
to be told what a very little way mine is, sir," she added with a 
glance at the small forms and round the room. 

All this time her hands were busy at her lace-pillow. As they 
still continued so, and as there was a kind of substitute for conver- 
sation in the click and play of its pegs, Barbox Brothers took the 
opportunity of observing her. He guessed her to be thirty. The 
charm of her transparent face and large bright brown eyes was, not 
that they were passively resigned, but that they were actively and 
thoroughly cheerful. Even her busy hands, which of their own 
thinness alone might have besought compassion, plied their task 
with a gay courage that made mere compassion an unjustifiable 
assumption of superiority, and an impertinence. 

He saw her eyes in the act of rising towards his, and he directed 
his towards the prospect, saying : "Beautiful, indeed ! " 

"Most beautiful, sir. I have sometimes had a fancy that I 
would like to sit up, for once, only to try how it looks to an erect 
head. But what a foolish fancy that would be to encourage ! It 
cannot look more lovely to any one than it does to me." 

Her eyes were turned to it, as she spoke, with most delighted 
admiration and enjoyment. There was not a trace in it of any 
sense of deprivation. 

" And those threads of railway, with their puffs of smoke and 
steam changing places so fast, make it so lively for me," she went 
on. " I think of the number of people who can go where they 
wish, on their business, or their pleasure; I remember that the 
puffs make signs to me that they are actually going while I look ; 
and that enlivens the prospect with abundance of company, if I 
want company. There is the great Junction, too. I don't see it 
under the foot of the hill, but I can very often hear it, and I 
always know it is there. It seems to join me, in a way, to I don't 
know how many places and things that / shall never see." 

With an abashed kind of idea that it might have already joined 
himself to something he had never seen, he said constrainedly : 
"Just so." 

"And so you see, sir," pursued Phoebe, "I am not the invalid 
you thought me, and I am very well off indeed," 

" You have a happy disposition," said Barbox Brothers : perhaps 
with a slight excusatory touch for his own disposition. 

" Ah ! But you should know my father," she replied. " His 
is the happy disposition ! — Don't mind, sir ! " For his reserve 
took the alarm at a step upon the stairs, and he distrusted that he 
would be set down for a troublesome intruder. " This is my father 
coming." 



J 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 471 

The door opened, and the father paused there. 

" Why, Lamps ! " exclaimed Barbox Brothers, starting from his 
chair. " How do you do. Lamps 1 " 

To which Lamps responded : " The gentleman for Nowhere ! 
How do you do, sir ? " 

And they shook hands, to the greatest admiration and surprise 
of Lamps's daughter. 

" I have looked you up half-a-dozen times since that night," said 
Barbox Brothers, " but have never found you." 

" So I've heerd on, sir, so I've heerd on," returned Lamps. 
" It's your being noticed so often down at the Junction, without 
taking any train, that has begun to get you the name among us of 
the gentleman for Nowhere. No offence in my having called you 
by it when took by surprise, I hope, sir ? " 

" None at all. It's as good a name for me as any other you could 
call me by. But may I ask you a question in the corner here ? " 

Lamps suffered himself to be led aside from his daughter's couch 
by one of the buttons of his velveteen jacket. 

" Is this the bedside where you sing your songs ? " 

Lamps nodded. 

The gentleman for Nowhere clapped him on the shoulder, and 
they faced about again. 

"Upon my word, my dear," said Lamps then to his daughter, 
looking from her to her visitor, "it is such an amaze to me, to 
find you brought acquainted with this gentleman, that I must (if 
this gentleman will excuse me) take a rounder." 

Mr. Lamps demonstrated in action what this meant, by pulling 
out his oily handkerchief rolled up in the form of a ball, and giving 
himself an elaborate smear, from behind the right ear, up the 
cheek, across the forehead, and down the other cheek to behind his 
left ear. After this operation he shone exceedingly. 

" It's according to my custom when particular warmed up by 
any agitation, sir," he offered by way of apology. "And really, I 
am throwed into that state of amaze by finding you brought ac- 
quainted with Phoebe, that I — that I think I will, if you'll excuse 
me, take another rounder." Which he did, seeming to be greatly 
restored by it. 

They were now both standing by the side of her couch, and she 
was working at her lace-pillow. "Your daughter tells me," said 
Barbox Brothers, still in a half-reluctant, shamefaced way, "that 
she never sits up." 

" No, sir, nor never has done. You see, her mother (who died 
when she was a year and two months old) was subject to very bad 
fits, and as she had never mentioned to me that she was subject to 



472 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

fits, they couldn't be guarded against. Consequently, she dropped 
the baby when took, and this happened." 

"It was very wrong of her," said Barbox Brothers with a 
knitted brow, "to marry you, making a secret of her infirmity." 

" Well, sir ! " pleaded Lamps in behalf of the long-deceased. 
" You see, Phoebe and me, we have talked that over too. And Lord 
bless us ! Such a number on us has our infirmities, what with fits, 
and what with misfits, of one sort and another, that if we confessed 
to 'em all before we got married, most of us might never get 
married." 

" Might not that be for the better ? " 

"Not in this case, sir," said Phoebe, giving her hand to her 
father. 

"No, not in this case, sir," said her father, patting it between 
his own. 

"You correct me," returned Barbox Brothers with a blush; "and 
I must look so like a Brute, that at all events it would be superflu- 
ous in me to confess to that infirmity. I wish you w^ould tell me a 
little more about yourselves. I hardly know how to ask it of you, 
for I am conscious that I have a bad stiff' manner, a dull discourag- 
ing way with me, but I wish you would." 

" With all our hearts, sir," returned Lamps gaily for both. 
" And first of all, that you may know my name " 

"Stay!" interposed the visitor with a slight flush. "What 
signifies your name? Lamps is name enough for me. I like it. 
It is bright and expressive. W^hat do I want more 1 " 

"Why, to be sure, sir," returned Lamps. "I have in general 
no other name down at the Junction ; but I thought, on account 
of your being here as a first-class single, in a private character, that 
you might " 

The visitor waved the thought away with his hand, and Lamps 
acknowledged the mark of confidence by taking another rounder. 

" You are hard- worked, I take for granted ? " said Barbox Broth- 
ers, when the subject of the rounder came out of it much dirtier 
then he went into it. 

Lamps was beginning, "Not particular so " — when his daugh- 
ter took him up. 

" Oh yes, sir, he is very hard- worked. Fourteen, fifteen, eighteen 
hours a day. Sometimes twenty-four hours at a time." 

"And you," said Barbox Brothers, "what with your school, 
Phoebe, and what with your lace-making " 

"But my school is a pleasure to me," she interrupted, opening 
her brown eyes wider, as if surprised to find him so obtuse. "I 
began it when I was but a child, because it brought me and other 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 473 

children into company, don't you see? That was not work. I 
carry it on still, because it keeps children about me. That is not 
work. I do it as love, not as work. Then my lace-pillow ; " her 
busy hands had stopped, as if her argument required all her cheer- 
ful earnestness, but now went on again at the name ; "it goes with 
my thoughts when I think, and it goes with my tunes when I hum 
any, and thaf^ not work. Why, you yourself thought it was mu- 
sic, you know, sir. And so it is to me." 

" Everything is ! " cried Lamps radiantly. " Everything is 
music to her, sir." 

" My father is, at any rate," said Phoebe, exultingly pointing her 
thin fore-finger at him. " There is more music in my father than 
there is in a brass band." 

" I say ! My dear ! It's very fillyillially done, you know ; but 
you are flattering your father," he protested, sparkling. 

" No, I am not, sir, I assure you. No, I am not. If you could 
hear my father sing, you would know I am not. But you never 
will hear him sing, because he never sings to any one but me. 
However tired he is, he always sings to me when he comes home. 
When I lay here long ago, quite a poor little broken doll, he 
used to sing to me. More than that, he used to make songs, 
bringing in whatever little jokes we had between us. More than 
tliat, he often does so to this day. Oh ! I'll tell of you, father, as 
the gentleman has asked about you. He is a poet, sir." 

"I shouldn't wish the gentleman, my dear," observed Lamps, for 
the moment turning grave, " to carry away that opinion of your 
father, because it might look as if I was given to asking the stars 
in a moUoncolly manner what they was up to. Which I wouldn't 
at once waste the time, and take the liberty, my dear." 

"My father," resumed Phoebe, amending her text, "is always on 
the bright side, and the good side. You told me, just now, I had a 
happy disposition. How can I help it 1 " 

" Well ; but, my dear," returned Lamps argumentatively, " how 
can I help it ? Put it to yourself sir. Look at her. Always as 
you see her now. Always working — - and after all, sir, for but a 
very few shillings a week — always contented, always lively, al- 
ways interested in others, of all sorts. I said, this moment, she 
was always as you see her now. So she is, with a difference that 
comes to much the same. For, when it is my Sunday off* and the 
morning bells have done ringing, I hear the prayers and thanks 
read in the touchingest way, and I have the hymns sung to me — 
so soft, sir, that you couldn't hear 'em out of this room — in notes 
that seem to me, I am sure, to come from Heaven and go back to 
it." 



474 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

It might have been merely through the association of these words 
with their sacredly quiet time, or it might have been through the 
larger association of the words with the Redeemer's presence beside 
the bedridden ; but here her dexterous fingers came to a stop on the 
lace-pillow, and clasped themselves around his neck as he bent 
down. There was great natural sensibility in both father and 
daughter, the visitor could easily see ; but each made it, for the 
other's sake, retiring, not demonstrative ; and perfect cheerfulness, 
intuitive or acquired, was either the first or second nature of both. 
In a very few moments Lamps was taking another rounder with 
his comical features beaming, while Phoebe's laughing eyes (just a 
glistening speck or so upon their lashes) were again directed by 
turns to him, and to her work, and to Barbox Brothers. 

"When my father, sir," she said brightly, " tells you about my 
being interested in other people, even though they know nothing 
about me — which, by the bye, I told you myself — you ought to 
know how that comes about. That's my father's doing." 

" No, it isn't ! " he protested. 

" Don't you believe him, sir ; yes, it is. He tells me of every- 
thing he sees down at his work. You avouM be surprised what a 
quantity he gets together for me every day. He looks into the 
carriages, and tells me how the ladies are dressed — so that I know 
all the fashions ! He looks into the carriages, and tells me what 
pairs of lovers he sees, and what new-married couples on their wed- 
ding-trip — so that I know all about that ! He collects chance 
newspapers and books — so that I have plenty to read ! He tells 
me about the sick people who are travelling to try to get better — so 
that I know all about them ! In short, as I began by saying, he 
tells me everything he sees and makes out down at his work, and 
you can't think what a quantity he does see and make out." 

"As to collecting newspapers and books, my dear," said Lamps, 
" it's clear I can have no merit in that, because they're not my 
perquisites. You see, sir, it's this way : A Guard, he'll say to me, 
' Hallo, here you are. Lamps. I've saved this paper for your 
daughter. How is she a going on ? ' A Head-Porter, he'll say to 
me, ' Here ! Catch hold. Lamps. Here's a couple of wollumes 
for your daughter. Is she pretty much where she were 1 ' And 
that's what makes it double welcome, you see. If she had a thou- 
sand pound in a box, they wouldn't trouble themselves about her ; 
but being what she is — that is, you understand," Lamps added, 
somewhat hurriedly, "not having a thousand pound in a box — 
they take thought for her. And as concerning the young pairs, 
married and unmarried, it's only natural I should bring home what 
little I can about the?}i, seeing that there's not a Couple of either 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 475 

sort in the neighbourhood that don't come of their own accord to 
confide in Phoebe." 

She raised her eyes triumphantly to Barbox Brothers as she 
said : 

" Indeed, sir, that is true. If I could have got up and gone to 
church, I don't know how often I should have been a bridesmaid. 
But, if I could have done that, some girls in love might have been 
jealous of me, and, as it is, no girl is jealous of me. And my 
pillow would not have been half as ready to put the piece of cake 
under, as I always find it," she added, turning her face on it with 
a light sigh, and a smile at her father. 

The arrival of the little girl, the biggest of the scholars, now led 
to an understanding on the part of Barbox Brothers, that she was 
the domestic of the cottage, and had come to take active measures 
in it, attended by a pail that might have extinguished her, and a 
broom three times her height. He therefore rose to take his leave, 
and took it ; saying that, if Phoebe had no objection, he would come 
again. 

He had muttered that he would come " in the course of his 
walks." The course of his walks must have been highly favour- 
able to his return, for he returned after an interval of a single 
day. 

" You thought you would never see me any more, I suppose ? " 
he said to Phoebe as he touched her hand, and sat down by her 
couch. 

" Why should I think so ? " was her surprised rejoinder. 

" I took it for granted you would mistrust me." 

" For granted, sir ? Have you been so much mistrusted 1 " 

" I think I am justified in answering yes. But I may have mis- 
trusted, too, on my part. JSTo matter just now. We were speak- 
ing of the Junction last time. I have passed hours there since the 
day before yesterday." 

" Are you now the gentleman for Somewhere ? " she asked with 
a smile. 

" Certainly for Somewhere ; but I don't yet know Where. You 
would never guess what I am travelling from. Shall I tell you ? 
I am travelling from my birthday." 

Her hands stopped in her work, and she looked at him with 
incredulous astonishment. 

"Yes," said Barbox Brothers, not quite easy in his chair, "from 
my birthday. I am, to myself, an unintelligible book with the 
earlier chapters all torn out, and thrown away. My childhood 
had no grace of childhood, my youth had no charm of youth, and 
what can be expected from such a lost beginning?" His eyes 



476 MUGBY JUNCTION. ^ 

meeting hers as they were addressed intently to him, something 
seemed to stir within his breast, whispering : " Was this bed a 
a place for the graces of childhood and the charms of youth to take 
to kindly ? Oh, shame, shame ! " 

"It is a disease with me," said Barbox Brothers, checking him- 
self, and making as though he had a difficulty in swallowing some- 
thing, "to go wrong about that. I don't know how I came to 
speak of that. I hope it is because of an old misplaced confidence 
in one of your sex involving an old bitter treachery. I don't know. 
I am all wrong together." 

Her hands quietly and slowly resumed their work. Glancing at 
her, he saw that her eyes were thoughtfully following them. 

"I am travelling from my birthday," he resumed, "because it 
has always been a dreary day to me. My first free birthday com- 
ing round some five or six weeks hence, I am travelling to put its 
predecessors far behind me, and to tiy to crush the day — or, at all 
events, put it out of my sight — by heaping new objects on it." 

As he paused, she looked at him ; but only shook her head as 
being quite at a loss. 

" This is unintelligible to your happy disposition," he pursued, 
abiding by his former phrase as if there were some lingering virtue 
of self-defence in it. "I knew it would be, and am glad it is. How- 
ever, on this travel of mine (in which I mean to pass the rest of my 
days, having abandoned all thought of a fixed home), I stopped, as 
you have heard from your father, at the Junction here. The extent 
of its ramifications quite confused me as to whither I should go, 
from here. I have not yet settled, being still perplexed among so 
many roads. What do you think I mean to do ? How many of 
the branching roads can you see from your window ? " 

Looking out, full of interest, she answered, " Seven." 

" Seven," said Barbox Brothers, watching her with a grave smile. 
" Well ! I propose to myself at once to reduce the gross number 
to those very seven, and gradually to fine them down to one — the 
most promising for me — and to take that." 

" But how will you know, sir, which is the most promising 1 " she 
asked, with her brightened eyes roving over the view. 

" Ah ! " said Barbox Brothers with another grave smile, and con- 
siderably improving in his ease of speech. "To be sure. In this 
way. Where your father can pick up so much every day for a good 
purpose, I may once and again pick up a little for an indifierent 
purpose. The gentleman for Nowhere must become still better 
known at the Junction. He shall continue to explore it, until he 
attaches something that he has seen, heard, or found out, at the 
head of each of the seven roads, to the road itself. And so his 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 477 

choice of a road shall be determined by his choice among his discov- 
eries." 

Her hands still busy, she again glanced at the prospect, as if it 
comprehended something that had not been in it before, and laughed 
as if it yielded her new pleasure. 

" But I must not forget," said Barbox Brothers, " (having got so 
far) to ask a favour. I want your help in this expedient of mine. 
I want to bring you what I pick up at the beads of the seven roads 
that you lie here looking out at, and to compare notes with you 
about it. May I ? They say two heads are better than one. I 
should say myself that probably depends upon the heads concerned. 
But I am quite sure, though we are so newly acquainted, that your 
head and your father's have found out better things, Phoebe, than 
ever mine of itself discovered." 

She gave him her sympathetic right hand, in perfect rapture with 
his proposal, and eagerly and gratefully thanked him. 

" That's well ! " said Barbox Brothers. " Again I must not for- 
get (having got so far) to ask a favour. Will you shut your eyes ? " 

Laughing playfully at the strange nature of the request, she did 
so. 

" Keep then) shut," said Barbox Brothers, going softly to the door, 
and coming back. "You are on your honour, mind, not to open 
your eyes until I tell you that you may ? " 

"Yes ! On my honour." 

" Good. May I take your lace-pillow from you for a minute ? " 

Still laughing and wondering, she removed her hands from it, and 
he put it aside. 

" Tell me. Did you see the puffs of smoke and steam made by 
the morning fast-train yesterday on road number seven from here ? " 

" Behind the elm-trees and the spire ? " 

" That's the road," said Barbox Brothers, directing his eyes towards 
it. 

"Yes. I watched them melt away." 

"Anything unusual in what they expressed?" 

" No ! " she answered merrily. 

"Not complimentary to me, for I was in that train, I went — 
don't open your eyes — to fetch you this, from the great ingenious 
town. It is not half so large as your lace-pillow, and lies easily and 
lightly in its place. These little keys are like the keys of a minia- 
ture piano, and you supply the air required with your left hand. 
May you pick out delightful music from it, my dear ! For the pres- 
ent — you can open your eyes now — good-bye ! " 

In his embarrassed way, he closed the door upon himself, and 
only saw, in doing so, that she ecstatically took the present to her 



478 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

bosom and caressed it. The glimpse gladdened his heart, and yet 
saddened it ; for so might she, if her youth had flourished in its 
natural course, have taken to her breast that day the slumbering 
music of her own child's voice. 



Chapter II. 

BARBOX BROTHERS AND CO. 

With good-will and earnest purpose, the gentleman for Nowhere 
began, on the very next day, his researches at the heads of the seven 
roads. The results of his researches, as he and Pho3be afterwards 
set them down in fair writing, hold their due places in this veracious 
chronicle. But they occupied a much longer time in the getting 
together than they ever will in the perusal. And this is probably 
the case with most reading matter, except when it is of that highly 
beneficial kind (for Posterity) which is " thrown off" in a few moments 
of leisure " by the superior poetic geniuses who scorn to take prose 
pains. 

It must be admitted, however, that Barbox by no means hurried 
himself. His heart being in his work of good-nature, he revelled 
in it. There was the joy, too (it was a true joy to him), of some- 
times sitting by, listening to Phoebe as she picked out more and 
more discourse from her musical instrument, and as her natural 
taste and ear refined daily upon her first discoveries. Besides being 
a pleasure, this was an occupation, and in the course of weeks it 
consumed hours. It resulted that his dreaded birthday was close 
upon him before he had troubled himself any more about it. 

The matter was made more pressing by the unforeseen circumstance 
that the councils held (at which Mr. Lamps, beaming most brilliantly, 
on a few rare occasions assisted) respecting the road to be selected 
were, after all, in nowise assisted by his investigations. For, he 
had connected this interest with this road, or that interest with the 
other, but could deduce no reason from it for giving any road the 
preference. Consequently, when the last council was holden, that 
part of the business stood, in the end, exactly where it had stood in 
the beginning. 

" But, sir," remarked Phoebe, " we have only six roads after all. 
Is the seventh road dumb ? " 

" The seventh road? Oh !" said Barbox Brothers, rubbing his 
chin. " That is the road I took, you know, when I went to get 
your little present. That is its story, Phoebe." 

"Would you mind taking that road again, sir ?" she asked with 
hesitation. 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 479 

" Not in the least ; it is a great higti-roacl after all." 

" I should like you to take it," returned Phoebe with a persuasive 
smile, " for the love of that little present which must ever be so dear 
to me. I should like you to take it, because that road can never 
be again like any other road to me. I should like you to take it, 
in remembrance of your having done me so much good : of your 
having made me so much happier ! If you leave me by the road 
you travelled when you went to do me this great kindness," sound- 
ing a faint chord as she spoke, " I shall feel, lying here watching at 
my window, as if it must conduct you to a jw'osperous end, and 
bring you back some day." 

" It shall be done, my dear ; it shall be done." 

So at last the gentleman for Nowhere took a ticket for Some- 
where, and his destination was the great ingenious town. 

He had loitered so long about the Junction that it was the 
eighteenth of December when he left it. "High time," he re- 
flected, as he seated himself in the train, "that I started in 
earnest ! Only one clear day remains between me and the day 
I am running away from. I'll push onward for the hill-country to- 
morrow. I'll go to Wales." 

It was with some pains that he placed before himself the undeni- 
able advantages to be gained in the way of novel occupation for his 
senses from misty mountains, swollen streams, rain, cold, a wild 
seashore, and rugged roads. And yet he scarcely made them out 
as distinctly as he could have wished. Whether the poor girl, in spite 
of her new resource, her music, would have any feeling of loneliness 
upon her now — just at first — that she had not had before ; whether 
she saw those very puffs of steam and smoke that he saw, as he sat 
in the train thinking of her; whether her face would have any 
pensive shadow on it as they died out of the distant view from her 
window ; whether, in telling him he had done her so much good, 
she had not unconsciously corrected his old moody bemoaning of 
his station in life, by setting him thinking that a man might be a 
great healer, if he would, and yet not be a great doctor ; these and 
other similar meditations got between him and his Welsh picture. 
There was within him, too, that dull sense of vacuity which follows 
separation from an object of interest, and cessation of a pleasant 
pursuit ; and this sense, being quite new to him, made him restless. 
Further, in losing Mugby Junction, he had found himself again ; 
and he was not the more enamoured of himself for having lately 
passed his time in better company. 

But surely here, not far ahead, must be the great ingenious town. 
This crashing and clashing that the train was undergoing, and this 
coupling on to it of a multitude of new echoes, could mean nothing 



480 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

less than approach to the great station. It did mean nothing less. 
After some stormy flashes of town lightning, in the way of swift 
revelations of red brick blocks of houses, high red brick chimney- 
shafts, vistas of red brick railway arches, tongues of fire, blocks of 
smoke, valleys of canal, and hiUs of coal, there came the thundering 
in at the journey's end. 

Having seen his portmanteaus safely housed in the hotel he 
chose, and having appointed his dinner hour, Barbox Brothers 
went out for a walk in the busy streets. And now it began to be 
suspected by him that Mugby Junction was a Junction of many 
branches, invisible as well as visible, and had joined him to an 
endless number of byeways. For, whereas he would, but a little 
while ago, have walked these streets blindly brooding, he now had 
eyes and thoughts for a new external world. How the many toil- 
ing people lived, and loved, and died ; how wonderful it was to 
consider the various trainings of eye and hand, the nice distinctions 
of sight and touch, that separated them into classes of workers, 
and even into classes of workers at subdivisions of one complete 
whole which combined their many intelligences and forces, though 
of itself but some cheap object of use or ornament in common life; 
how good it was to know that such assembling in a multitude on 
their part, and such contribution of their several dexterities towards 
a civilising end, did not deteriorate them as it was the fashion of 
the supercilious Mayflies of humanity to pretend, but engendered 
among them a self-respect, and yet a modest desire to be much 
wiser than they were (the first evinced in their well-balanced bear- 
ing and manner of speech when he stopped to ask a question ; the 
second, in the announcements of their popular studies and amuse- 
ments on the public walls) ; these considerations, and a host of 
such, made his walk a memorable one. " I too am but a little 
part of a great whole," he began to think; "and to be serviceable 
to myself and others, or to be happy, I must cast my interest into, 
and draw it out of, the common stock." 

Although he had arrived at his journey's end for the day by 
noon, he had since insensibly walked about the town so far and 
so long that the lamp-lighters were now at their work in the 
streets, and the shops were sparkling up brilliantly. Thus re- 
minded to turn towards his quarters, he was in the act of doing 
so, when a very little hand crept into his, and a very little voice 
said : 

" Oh ! if you please, I am lost ! " 

He looked down, and saw a very little fiiir-haired girl. 

"Yes," she said, confirming her words with a serious nod. "I 
am indeed. I am lost ! " 



MUGBY JUNCTION 481 

Grreatly perplexed, he stopped, looked about him for help, descried 
none, and said, bending low : 

" Where do you live, my child ? " 

" I don't know where I live," she returned. " I am lost." 

" What is your name ? " 

"Polly." 

" What is your other name ? " 

The reply was prompt, but unintelligible. 

Imitating the sound as he caught it, he hazarded the guess, 
" Trivits." 

" Oh no ! " said the child, shaking her head. '*^othing like that." 

" Say it again, little one." 

An unpromising business. For this time it had quite a. different 
sound. 

He made the venture, " Paddens ? " 

" Oh no ! " said the child. " Nothing like that." 

"Once more. Let us try it again, dear." 

A most hopeless business. This time it swelled into four syl- 
lables. " It can't be Tappitarver ? " said Barbox Brothers, rubbing 
his head with his hat in discomfiture. 

"No ! It ain't," the child quietly assented. 

On her trying this unfortunate name once more, with extraordinary 
efforts at distinctness, it swelled into eight syllables at least. 

" Ah ! I think," said Barbox Brothers, with a desperate air of 
resignation, "that we had better give it up." 

"But I am lost," said the child, nestling her little hand more 
closely in his, " and you'll take care of me, won't you ? " 

If ever a man were disconcerted by division between compassion 
on the one hand, and the very imbecility of irresolution on the 
other, here the man was. "Lost ! " he repeated, looking down at 
the child. " I am sure I am. What is to be done 1 " 

"Where do you live?" asked the child, looking up at him wist- 
fully. 

" Over there," he answered, pointing vaguely in the direction of 
his hotel. 

"Hadn't we better go there?" said the child. 

"Really," he replied, "I don't know but what we had." 

So they set off, hand-in-hand. He, through comparison of him- 
self against his little companion, with a clumsy feeling on him as if 
he had just developed into a foolish giant. She, clearly elevated in 
her own tiny opinion by having got him so neatly out of his em- 
barrassment. 

" We are going to have dinner when we get there, I suppose ? " 
said Polly. 

2i 



482 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

"Well," he rejoined, "I Yes, I suppose we are." 

"Do you like your dinner?" asked the child. 

"Why, on the whole," said Barbox Brothers, "yes, I think I 
do." 

" I do mine," said Polly. " Have you any brothers and sisters 1 " 

"No. Have you?" 

"Mine are dead." 

" Oh ! " said Barbox Brothers. With that absurd sense of un- 
wieldiness of mind and body weighing him down, he would have 
not known how to pursue the conversation beyond this curt re- 
joinder, but that the child was always ready for him. 

"What," she asked, turning her soft hand coaxingly in his, 
"are you going to do to amuse me after dinner?" 

" Upon my soul, Polly," exclaimed Barbox Brothers, very much 
at a loss, " I have not the slightest idea ! " 

"Then I tell you what," said Polly. " Have you got any cards 
at your house ? " 

" Plenty," said Barbox Brothers in a boastful vein. 

" Very well. Then I'll build houses, and you shall look at me. 
You mustn't blow, you know." 

"Oh no," said Barbox Brothers. "No, no, no. No blowing. 
Blowing's not fair." 

He flattered himself that he had said this pretty well for an 
idiotic monster ; but the child, instantly perceiving the awkward- 
ness of his attempt to adapt himself to her level, utterly destroyed 
his hopeful opinion of himself by saying compassionately : " What 
a funny man you are ! " 

Feeling, after this melancholy failure, as if he every minute grew 
bigger and heavier in person, and weaker in rnind, Barbox gave 
himself up for a bad job. No giant ever submitted more meekly 
to be led in triumph by all-conquering Jack than he to be bound in 
slavery to Polly. 

" Do you know any stories ? " she asked him. 

He was reduced to the humiliating confession : " No." 

" What a dunce you must be, mustn't you ? " said Polly. 

He was reduced to the humiliating confession : "Yes." 

"Would you like me to teach you a story? But you must re- 
member it, you know, and be able to tell it right to somebody else 
afterwards." 

He professed that it would afford him the highest mental grati- 
fication to be taught a story, and that he would humbly endeavour 
to retain it in his mind. Whereupon Polly, giving her hand a new 
little turn in his, expressive of settling down for enjoyment, com- 
menced a long romance, of which every relishing clause began with 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 483 

the words : " So this," or, " And so this." As, " So this boy; " or, 
"So this fairy; " or, "And so this pie was four yards round, and 
two yards and a quarter deep." The interest of the romance was 
[ derived from the intervention of this fairy to punish this boy for 
having a greedy appetite. To achieve which purpose, this fairy 
made this pie, and this boy ate and ate and ate, and his cheeks 
swelled and swelled and swelled. There were many tributary cir- 
cumstances, but the forcible interest culminated in the total con- 
sumption of this pie, and the bursting of this boy. Truly he was 
a fine sight, Barbox Brothers, with serious attentive face, and ear 
bent down, much jostled on the pavements of the busy town, but 
afraid of losing a single incident of the epic, lest he should be ex- 
amined in it by and bye, and found deficient. 

Thus they arrived at the hotel. And there he had to say at the 
bar, and said awkwardly enough : " I have found a little girl ! " 

The whole establishment turned out to look at the little girl. 
Nobody knew her ; nobody could make out her name, as she set it 
forth — except one chamber-maid, who said it was Constantinople 
— which it wasn't. 

" I will dine with my young friend in a private room," said Bar- 
box Brothers to the hotel authorities, "and perhaps you will be so 
good as to let the police know that the pretty baby is here. I 
suppose she is sure to be inquired for soon, if she has not been 
already. Come along, Polly." 

Perfectly at ease and peace, Polly came along, but, finding the 
stairs rather stiff work, was carried up by Barbox Brothers. The 
dinner was a most transcendant success, and the Barbox sheepish- 
ness, under Polly's directions how to mince her meat for her, and 
how to diffuse gravy over the plate with a liberal and equal hand, 
was another fine sight. 

"And now," said Polly, "while we are at dinner, you be good, 
and tell me that story I taught you." 

With the tremors of a Civil Service examination upon him, and 
very uncertain indeed, not only as to the epoch at which the pie 
appeared in history, but also as to the measurements of that indis- 
pensable fact, Barbox Brothers made a shaky beginning, but under 
encouragement did very fairly. There was a want of breadth ob- 
servable in his rendering of the cheeks, as well as the appetite, of 
the boy ; and there was a certain tameness in his fairy, referable to 
an under-current of desire to account for her. Still, as the first 
lumbering performance of a good-humoured monster, it passed 
muster. 

"I told you to be^ood," said Polly, "and you are good, ain't 
you?" 



484 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

"I hope so," replied Barbox Brothers. 

Such was his deference that Polly, elevated on a platform of 
sofa cushions in a chair at his right hand, encouraged him with a 
pat or two on the face from the greasy bowl of her spoon, and even 
with a gracious kiss. In getting on her feet upon her chair, how- 
ever, to give him this last reward, she toppled forward among the ' 
dishes, and caused him to exclaim, as he effected her rescue: 
" Gracious Angels ! Whew ! I thought we were in the fire, 
Polly!" 

" What a coward you are, ain't you ? " said Polly when replaced. 

" Yes, I am rather nervous," he replied. " Whew ! Don't, 
Polly ! Don't flourish your spoon, or you'll go over sideways. 
Don't tilt up your legs when you laugh, Polly, or you'll go over 
backwards. Whew ! Polly, Polly, Polly," said Barbox Brothers, 
nearly succumbing to despair, " we are environed with dangers ! " 

Indeed, he could descry no security from the pitfalls that were 
yawning for Polly, but in proposing to her, after dinner, to sit upon 
a low stool. " I will, if you will," said Polly. So, as peace of mind 
should go before all, he begged the waiter to wheel aside the table, 
bring a pack of cards, a couple of footstools, and a screen, and close in 
Polly and himself before the fire, as it were in a snug room within 
the room. Then, finest sight of all, was Barbox Brothers on his 
footstool, with a pint decanter on the rug, contemplating Polly as 
she built successfully, and growing blue in the face with holding his 
breath, lest he should blow the house down. 

" How you stare, don't you ? " said Polly in a houseless pause. 

Detected in the ignoble fact, he felt obliged to admit, apologeti- 
cally : " I am afraid I was looking rather hard at you, Polly." J 

" Why do you stare ? " asked Polly. ^ 

"I cannot," he murmured to himself, "recall why. — I don't 
know, Polly." 

" You must be a simpleton to do things and not know why, 
mustn't you ? " said Polly. 

In spite of which reproof, he looked at the child again intently, 
as she bent her head over her card structure, her rich curls shading 
her face. " It is impossible," he thought, " that I can ever have seen 
this pretty baby before. Can I have dreamed of her ? In some 
sorrowful dream ? " 

He could make nothing of it. So he went into the building 
trade as a journeyman under Polly, and they built three stories 
high, four stories high ; even five. 

" I say ! Who do you think is coming ? " asked Polly, rubbing 
her eyes after tea. 

He guessed : "The waiter?" 



J 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 485 

" No," said Polly, " the dustman. I am getting sleepy. " 

A new embarrassment for Barbox Brothers ! 

"I don't think I am going to be fetched to-night," said Polly. 
" What do you think ? " 

He thought not, either. After another quarter of an hour, the 
dustman not merely impending, but actually arriving, recourse was 
had to the Constantiuopolitan chamber-maid : who cheerily under- 
took that the child should sleep in a comfortable and wholesome 
room, which she herself would share. 

"And I know you will be careful, won't^you," said Barbox 
Brothers, as a new fear dawned upon him, " that she don't fall out 
of bed?" 

Polly found this so highly entertaining that she was under the 
necessity of clutching him round the neck with both arms as he 
sat on his footstool picking up the cards, and rocking him to and 
fro, with her dimpled chin on his shoulder. 

"Oh, what a coward you are, ain't you?" said Polly. "Do 
you fall out of bed ? " 

"N — not generally, Polly." 

" No more do I." 

With that, Polly gave him a reassuring hug or two to keep him 
going, and then giving that confiding mite of a hand of hers to be 
swallowed up in the hand of the Constantiuopolitan chamber- 
maid, trotted off, chattering, without a vestige of anxiety. 

He looked after her, had the screen removed and the table and 
chairs replaced, and still looked after her. He paced the room for 
half an hour. " A most engaging little creature, but it's not that. 
A most winning little voice, but it's not that. That has much to 
do with it, but there is something more. How can it be that I 
seem to know this child ? What was it she imperfectly recalled to 
me when I felt her touch in the street, and, looking down at her, 
saw her looking up at me ? " 

" Mr. Jackson ! " 

With a start he turned towards the sound of the subdued voice, 
and saw his answer standing at the door. 

" Oh, Mr. Jackson, do not be severe with me ! Speak a word 
of encouragement to me, I beseech you." 

"You are Polly's mother." 

"Yes." 

Yes. Polly herself might come to this, one day. As you see 
what the rose was in its faded leaves ; as you see what the sum- 
mer growth of the woods was in their wintry branches ; so Polly 
might be traced, one day, in a careworn woman like this, with her 
hair turned grey. Before him were the ashes of a dead fire that 



486 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

had once burned bright. This was the woman he had loved. 
This was the woman he had lost. Such had been the constancy 
of his imagination to her, so had Time spared her under its with- 
holding, that now, seeing how roughly the inexorable hand had 
struck her, his soul was filled with pity and amazement. 

He led her to a chair, and stood leaning on a corner of the chim- 
ney-piece, with his head resting on his hand, and his face half 
averted. 

" Did you see me in the street, and show me to your child ? " 
he asked. 

" Yes." 

" Is the little creature, then, a party to deceit ? " 

" I hope there is no deceit. I said to her, ' We have lost our 
way, and I must try to find mine by myself. Go to that gentle- 
man, and tell him you are lost. You shall be fetched by and bye.' 
Perhaps you have not thought how very young she is ? " 

" She is very self-reliant." 

"Perhaps because she is so young." 

He asked, after a short pause, "Why did you do this?" 

" Oh, Mr. Jackson, do you ask me 1 In the hope that you 
might see something in my innocent child to soften your heart 
towards me. Not only towards me, but towards my husband." 

He suddenly turned about, and walked to the opposite end of 
the room. He came back again with a slower step, and resumed 
his former attitude, saying : 

" I thought you had emigrated to America 1 " 

"We did. But life went ill with us there, and we came back." 

" Do you live in this town 1 " 

"Yes. I am a daily teacher of music here. My husband is a 
book-keeper." 

" Are you — forgive my asking — poor ? " 

" We earn enough for our wants. That is not our distress. 
My husband is very, very ill of a lingering disorder. He will never 
recover " 

"You check yourself. If it is for want of the encouraging 
word you spoke of, take it from me. I cannot forget the old time, 
Beatrice." 

" God bless you ! " she repHed with a burst of tears, and gave 
him her trembling hand. 

" Compose yourself. I cannot be composed if you are not, for 
to see you weep distresses me beyond expression. Speak freely to 
me. Trust me." 

She shaded her face with her veil, and after a little while spoke 
calmly. Her voice had the ring of Polly's. 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 487 

" It is not that my husband's mind is at all impaired by his 
bodily suffering, for I assure you that is not the case. But in his 
weakness, and in his knowledge that he is incurably ill, he cannot 
overcome the ascendancy of one idea. It preys upon him, embit- 
ters every moment of his painful life, and will shorten it." 

She stopping, he said again : " Speak freely to me. Trust me." 

" We have had five children before this darling, and they all lie 
in their little graves. He believes that they have withered away 
under a curse, and that it will blight this child like the rest." 

" Under what curse ? " 

" Both I and he have it on our conscience that we tried you 
very heavily, and I do not know but that, if I were as ill as he, 
I might suffer in my mind as he does. This is the constant bur- 
den : — 'I believe, Beatrice, I was the only friend that Mr. Jackson 
ever cared to make, though I was so much his junior. The more 
influence he acquired in the business, the higher he advanced me, 
and I was alone in his private confidence. I came between him 
and you, and I took you from him. We were both secret, and the 
blow fell when he was wholly unprepared. The anguish it caused 
a man so compressed must have been terrible ; the wrath it awak- 
ened inappeasable. So, a curse came to be invoked on our poor 
pretty little flowers, and they fall.'" 

"And you, Beatrice," he asked, when she had ceased to speak, 
and there had been a silence afterwards, " how say you ? " 

"Until within these few weeks I was afraid of you, and I 
believed that you would never, never forgive." 

" Until within these few weeks," he repeated. " Have you 
changed your opinion of me within these few weeks ? " 

"Yes." 

" For what reason ? " 

" I was getting some pieces of music in a shop in this town, 
when, to my terror, you came in. As I veiled my face and stood 
in the dark end of the shop, I heard you explain that you wanted 
a musical instrument for a bedridden girl. Your voice and manner 
were so softened, you showed such interest it its selection, you took 
it away yourself with so much tenderness of care and pleasure, that 
I knew you were a man with a most gentle heart. Oh, Mr. Jack- 
son, Mr. Jackson, if you could have felt the refreshing rain of tears 
that followed for me ! " 

Was Phoebe playing at that moment on her distant couch 1 He 
seemed to hear her. 

" I inquired in the shop where you lived, but could get no in- 
formation. As I had heard you say that you were going back by 
the next train (but you did not say where), I resolved to visit the 



488 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

station at about that time of day, as often as I could, between my 
lessons, on the chance of seeing you again. I have been there very 
often, but saw you no more until to-day. You were meditating 
as you walked the street, but the calm expression of your face 
emboldened me to send my child to you. And when I saw you 
bend your head to speak tenderly to her, I prayed to God to for- 
give me for having ever brought a sorrow on it. I now pray to 
you to forgive me, and to forgive my husband. I was very young, 
he was young too, and, in the ignorant hardihood of such a time of 
life, we don't know what we do to those who have undergone more 
discipline. You generous man ! You good man ! So to raise me 
up and make nothing of my crime against you ! " — for he would 
not see her on her knees, and soothed her as a kind father might 
have soothed an erring daughter — "thank you, bless you, thank 
you ! " 

When he next spoke, it was after having drawn aside the window 
curtain and looked out awhile. Then he only said : 

" Is Polly asleep ? " 

" Yes. As I came in, I met her going away up-stairs, and put 
her to bed myself" 

" Leave her with me for to-morrow, Beatrice, and write me your 
address on this leaf of my pocket-book. In the evening I will 
bring her home to you — and to her father." 

" Hallo ! " cried Polly, putting her saucy sunny face in at the 
door next morning when breakfast was ready : " I thouglit I was 
fetched last night ? " 

" So you were, Polly, but I asked leave to keep you here for 
the day, and to take you home in the evening." 

" Upon my word ! " said Polly. " You are very cool, ain't 
you ? " 

However, Polly seemed to think it a good idea, and added : 

"I suppose I must give you a kiss, though you are cool." 

The kiss given and taken, they sat down to breakfast in a highly 
conversational tone. 

" Of course, you are going to amuse me ? " said Polly. 

" Oh, of course ! " said Barbox Brothers. 

In the pleasurable height of her anticipations, Polly found it 
indispensable to put down her piece of toast, cross one of her little 
fat knees over the other, and bring her little fat right hand down 
into her left hand with a business-like slap. After this gathering 
of herself together, Polly, by that time a mere heap of dimples, 
asked in a wheedling manner : 

" What are we going to do, you dear old thing 1 " 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 489 

" Why, I was thinking," said Barbox Brothers, " — but are you 
fond of horses, Polly ? " 

" Ponies, I am," said Polly, " especially when their tails are long. 
But horses — n — no — too big, you know." 

" Well," pursued Barbox Brothers, in a spirit of grave mysteri- 
ous confidence adapted to the importance of the consultation, " I 
did see yesterday, Polly, on the walls, pictures of two long-tailed 
ponies, speckled all over " 

" No, no, NO ! " cried Polly, in an ecstatic desire to linger on the 
charming details. " Not speckled all over ! " _, 

" Speckled all over. Which ponies jump through hoops " 

" No, no, NO ! " cried Polly as before. " They never jump 
through hoops ! " 

" Yes, they do. Oh, I assure you they do ! And eat pie in 
pinafores " 

" Ponies eating pie in pinafores ! " said Polly. " What a story- 
teller you are, ain't you ? " 

" Upon my honour. — And fire off guns." 

(Polly hardly seemed to see the force of the ponies resorting to 
fire-arms.) 

"And I was thinking," pursued the exemplary Barbox, "that 
if you and I were to go to the Circus where these ponies are, it 
would do our constitutions good." 

" Does that mean amuse us ? " inquired Polly. " What long 
words you do use, don't you 1 " 

Apologetic for having wandered out of his depth, he replied : 

" That means amuse us. That is exactly what it means. There 
are many other wonders besides the ponies, and we shall see them 
all. Ladies and gentlemen in spangled dresses, and elephants and 
lions and tigers." 

Polly became observant of the teapot, with a curled-up nose 
indicating some uneasiness of mind. 

"They never get out, of course," she remarked as a mere truism. 

" The elephants and lions and tigers ? Oh, dear no ! " 

"Oh, dear no !" said Polly. "And of course nobody's afraid of 
the ponies shooting anybody." 

" Not the least in the world." 

" No, no, not the least in the world," said Polly. 

"I was also thinking," proceeded Barbox, "that if we were to 
look in at the toy-shop, to choose a doll " 

" Not dressed ! " cried Polly with a clap of her hands. " No, 
no, NO, not dressed ! " 

"Full-dressed. Together with a house, and all things necessary 
for housekeeping " 



490 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

Polly gave a little scream, and seemed in danger of falling into 
a swoon of bliss. 

" What a darling you are ! " she languidly exclaimed, leaning 
back in her chair. " Come and be hugged, or I must come and 
hug you." 

This resplendent programme was carried into execution with the 
utmost rigour of the law. It being essential to make the purchase 
of the doll its first feature — or that lady would have lost the 
ponies — the toy-shop expedition took precedence. Polly in the 
magic warehouse, with a doll as large as herself under each arm, 
and a neat assortment of some twenty more on view upon the 
counter, did indeed present a spectacle of indecision not quite com- 
patible with unalloyed happiness, but the light cloud passed. The 
lovely specimen oftenest chosen, oftenest rejected, and finally abided 
by, was of Circassian descent, possessing as much boldness of beauty 
as was reconcilable with extreme feebleness of mouth, and combin- 
ing a sky-blue silk pelisse with rose-coloured satin trousers, and a 
black velvet hat : which this fair stranger to our northern shores 
would seem to have founded on the portraits of the late Duchess 
of Kent. The name this distinguished foreigner brought with her 
from beneath the glowing skies of a sunny clime was (on Polly's 
authority) Miss Melluka, and the costly nature of her outfit as a 
housekeeper, from the Barbox coff"ers, may be inferred from the 
two facts that her silver tea-spoons were as large as her kitchen 
poker, and that the proportions of her watch exceeded those of 
her frying-pan. Miss Melluka was graciously pleased to express 
her entire approbation of the Circus, and so was Polly; for the 
ponies ivere speckled, and brought down nobody when they fired, 
and the savagery of the wild beasts appeared to be mere smoke — 
w^hich article, in fact, they did produce in large quantities from 
their insides. The Barbox absorption in the general subject 
throughout the realisation of these delights was again a sight to 
see, nor was it less worthy to behold at dinner, when he drank to 
Miss Melluka, tied stiff" in a chair opposite to Polly (the fair 
Circassian possessing an unbendable spine), and even induced the 
waiter to assist in carrying out with due decorum the prevailing 
glorious idea. To wind up, there came the agreeable fever of get- 
ting Miss Melluka and all her wardrobe and rich possessions into 
a fly with Polly, to be taken home. But, by that time, Polly had 
become unable to look upon such accumulated joys with waking 
eyes, and had withdrawn her consciousness into the wonderful 
Paradise of a child's sleep. "Sleep, Polly, sleep," said Barbox 
Brothers, as her head dropped on his shoulder; "you shall not 
fall out of this bed easily, at any rate ! " 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 491 

What rustling piece of paper he took from his pocket, and care- 
fully folded into the bosom of Polly's frock, shall not be mentioned. 
He said nothing about it, and nothing shall be said about it. They 
drove to a modest suburb of the great ingenious town, and stopped 
at the fore-court of a small house. "Do not wake the child," said 
Barbox Brothers softly to the driver; "I will carry her in as she 
is." 

Greeting the light at the opened door which was held by Polly's 
mother, Polly's bearer passed on with mother and child into a 
ground-floor room. There, stretched on a sofa, lay a sick man, 
sorely wasted, who covered his eyes with his emaciated hands. 

"Tresham," said Barbox in a kindly voice, "I have brought 
you back your Polly, fast asleep. Give me your hand, and tell me 
you are better." 

The sick man reached forth his right hand, and bowed his head 
over the hand into which it was taken, and kissed it. "Thank 
you, thank you ! I may say that I am well and happy." 

"That's brave," said Barbox. " Tresham, I have a fancy 

Can you make room for me beside you here ? " 

He sat down on the sofa as he said the words, cherishing the 
plump peachey cheek that lay uppermost on his shoulder. 

" I have a fancy, Tresham (I am getting quite an old fellow now, 
you know, and old fellows may take fancies into their heads some- 
times), to give up Polly, having found her, to no one but you. 
Will you take her from me 1 " 

As the father held out his arms for the child, each of the two 
men looked steadily at the other. 

" She is very dear to you, Tresham ? " 

"Unutterably dear." 

" God bless her ! It is not much, Polly," he continued, turning 
his eyes upon her peaceful face as he apostrophised her, "it is not 
much, Polly, for a blind and sinful man to invoke a blessing on 
something so far better than himself as a little child is ; but it 
would be much — much upon his cruel head, and much upon his 
guilty soul — if he could be so wicked as to invoke a curse. He 
had better have a millstone round his neck, and be cast into the 
deepest sea. Live and thrive, my pretty baby ! " Here he kissed 
her. " Live and prosper, and become in time the mother of other 
little children, like the Angels who behold The Father's face ! " 

He kissed her again, gave her up gently to both her parents, and 
went out. 

But he went not to Wales. No, he never went to Wales. He 
went straightway for another stroll about the town, and he looked 
in upon the people at their work, and at their play, here, there, 



492 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

everywhere, and where not. For he was Barbox Brothers and Co. 
now, and had taken thousands of partners into the solitary firm. 

He had at length got back to his hotel room, and w^as standing 
before his fire refreshing himself with a glass of hot drink which he 
had stood upon the chimney-piece, when he heard the town clocks 
striking, and, referring to his watch, found the evening to have so 
slipped away, that they were striking twelve. As he put up his 
w^atch again, his eyes met those of his reflection in the chimney- 
glass. 

" Why, it's your birthday already," he said, smiling. " You are 
looking very w^ell. I wish you many happy returns of the day." 

He had never before bestowed that wish upon himself. " By 
Jupiter ! " he discovered, " it alters the whole case of running away 
from one's birthday ! It's a thing to explain to Phoebe. Besides, 
here is quite a long story to tell her, that has sprung out of the 
road with no story. I'll go back, instead of going on. I'll go 
back by my friend Lamps's Up X presently." 

He went back to Mugby Junction, and, in point of fact, he es- 
tablished himself at Mugby Junction. It was the convenient place 
to live in, for brightening Phoebe's life. It was the convenient 
place to live in, for having her taught music by Beatrice. It was 
the convenient place to live in, for occasionally borrowing Polly. 
It w^as the convenient place to live in, for being joined at will 
to all sorts of agreeable places and persons. So, he became settled 
there, and, his house standing in an elevated situation, it is note- 
worthy of him in conclusion, as Polly herself might (not irrever- 
ently) have put it : 

" There was an Old Barbox who lived on a hill, 
And if he ain't gone, he lives there still." 

Here follows the substance of w^hat avas seen, heard, 
OR otherwise picked up, by the Gentleman for Nowhere, 

IN HIS careful study OF THE JUNCTION. 



Chapter III. 

MAIN LINE. THE BOY AT MUGBY. 

I AM the boy at Mugby. That's about what / am. 

You don't know what I mean ? What a pity ! But I think 
you do. I think you must. Look here. I am the boy at what 
is called The Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, and what's 
proudest boast is, that it never yet refreshed a mortal being. 

Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby June- 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 493 

tion, in the height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I've often 
counted 'em while they brush the First-class hair twenty-seven ways), 
behind the bottles, among the glasses, bounded on the nor'west by 
the beer, stood pretty far to the right of a metallic object that's at 
times the tea-urn and at times the soup- tureen, according to the 
nature of the last twang imparted to its contents which are the same 
groundwork, fended off from the traveller by a barrier of stale 
sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly exposed side- 
ways to the glare of Our Missis's eye — you ask a Boy so sitiwated, 
next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything to drink ; 
you take particular notice that he'll try to seem not to hear you, 
that he'll appear in a absent manner to survey the Line through a 
transparent medium composed of your head and body, and that he 
won't serve you as long as you can possibly bear it. That's me. 

What a lark it is ! We are the Model Establishment, we are, 
at Mugby. Other Refreshment Rooms send their imperfect young 
ladies up to be finished off by our Missis. For some of the young 
ladies, when they're new to the business, come into it mild ! Ah ! 
Our Missis, she soon takes that out of 'em. Why, I originally come 
into the business meek myself. But Our Missis, she soon took that 
out of me. 

What a delightful lark it is ! I look upon us Refreshmenters as 
ockipying the only proudly independent footing on the Line. There's 
Papers, for instance, — my honourable friend, if he will allow me 
to call him so, — him as belongs to Smith's bookstall. Why, he no 
more dares to be up to our Refreshmenting games than he dares to 
jump atop of a locomotive with her steam at full pressure, and cut 
away upon her alone, driving himself, at limited-mail speed. Papers, 
he'd get his head punched at every compartment, first, second, and 
third, the whole length of a train, if he was to ventur to imitate 
my demeanour. It's the same with the porters, the same with the 
guards, the same with the ticket clerks, the same the whole way 
up to the secretary, trafl&c-manager, or very chairman. There ain't 
a one among 'em on the nobly independent footing we are. Did you 
ever catch one of them, when you wanted anything of him, making 
a system of surveying the Line through a transparent medium com- 
posed of your head and body 1 I should hope not. 

You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction. It's 
led to by the door behind the counter, which you'll notice usually 
stands ajar, and it's the room where Our Missis and our young ladies 
Bandolines their hair. You should see 'em at it, betwixt trains, 
Bandolining away, as if they was anointing themselves for the com- 
bat. When you're telegraphed, you should see their noses all a 
going up with scorn, as if it was a part of the working of the same 



494 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

Cooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery. You should hear Our 
Missis give the word, " Here comes the Beast to be Fed ! " and then 
you should see 'em indignantly skipping across the Line, from the 
Up to the Down, or Wicer Warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale 
pastry into the plates, and chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the 
glass covers, and get out the — ha, ha, ha ! — the sherry, — my 
eye, my eye ! — for your Refreshment. 

It's only in the Isle of the Brave and Land of the Free (by which, 
of course, I mean to say Britannia) that Refreshmenting is so effec- 
tive, so 'olesome, so constitutional a check upon the public. There 
was a Foreigner, which having politely, with his hat off, beseeched 
our young ladies and Our Missis for "a leetel gloss hoff prarndee," 
and having had the Line surveyed through him by all and no other 
acknowledgment, was a proceeding at last to help himself, as seems 
to be the custom in his own country, when Our Missis, with her 
hair almost a coming un-Bandolined with rage, and her eyes omit- 
ting sparks, flew at him, cotched the decanter out of his hand, and 
said, " Put it down ! I won't allow that ! " The foreigner turned 
pale, stepped back with his arms stretched out in front of him, his 
hands clasped, and his shoulders riz, and exclaimed : " Ah ! Is it 
possible, this ! That these disdaineous females and this ferocious 
old woman are placed here by the administration, not only to em- 
poison the voyagers, but to affront them ! Great Heaven ! How 
arrives it ? The English people. Or is he then a slave 1 Or idiot 1 " 
Another time, a merry, wideawake American gent had tried the saw- 
dust and spit it out, and had tried the Sherry and spit that out, and 
had tried in vain to sustain exhausted natur upon Butter-Scotch, 
and had been rather extra Bandolined and Line-surveyed through, 
when, as the bell was ringing and he paid Our Missis, he says, very 
loud and good-tempered : "I tell Yew what 'tis, ma'arm. I la'af. 
Theer ! I la'af. I Dew. I oughter ha' seen most things, for I hail 
from the Onlimited side of the Atlantic Ocean, and I halve travelled 
right slick over the Limited, head on through Jeerusalemm and the 
East, and likewise France and Italy, Europe Old World, and am 
now upon the track to the Chief Europian Village ; but such an 
Institution as Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid 
and liquid, afore the glorious Tarnal I never did see yet ! And if 
I hain't found the eighth wonder of monarchial Creation, in finding 
Yew, and Yewer young ladies, and Yewer fixin's solid and liquid, 
all as aforesaid, established in a country where the people air not 
absolute Loo-naticks, I am Extra Double Darned with a Nip and 
Frizzle to the innermostest grit ! Wheerfur — Theer ! — I la'af ! I 
Dew, ma'arm. I la'af ! " And so he went, stamping and shaking 
his sides, along the platform all the way to his own compartment. 






MUGBY JUNCTION. 495 

I think it was her standing up agin the Foreigner as giv' Our 
Missis the idea of going over to France, and droring a comparison 
betwixt Refreshmenting as followed among the frog-eaters, and 
Refreshmenting as triumphant in the Isle of the Brave and Land of 
the Free (by which, of course, I mean to say agin, Britannia). Our 
young ladies. Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and Mrs. Sniff, was unanimous 
opposed to her going ; for, as they says to Our Missis one and all, 
it is well beknown to the hends of the berth as no other nation ex- 
cept Britain has a idea of any think, but above all of business. Why 
then should you tire yourself to prove what is already proved ? Our 
Missis, however (being a teazer at all pints) stood out grim obsti- 
nate, and got a return pass by Southeastern Tidal, to go right 
through, if such should be her dispositions, to Marseilles. 

Sniff is husband to Mrs. Sniff, and is a regular insignificant cove. 
He looks arter the sawdust department in a back room, and is 
sometimes, when we are very hard put to it, let behind the counter 
with a corkscrew ; but never when it can be helped, his demeanour 
towards the public being disgusting servile. How Mrs. Sniff ever 
come so far to lower herself as to marry him, I don't know ; but I 
suppose he does, and I should think he wished he didn't, for he leads 
a awful life. Mrs. Sniff couldn't be much harder with him if he was 
public. Similarly, Miss Whiff and Miss Piff, taking the tone of Mrs. 
Sniff, they shoulder Sniff about when he is, let in with a corkscrew, 
and they whisk things out of his hands when in his servility he is a 
going to let the public have 'em, and they snap him up when in the 
crawling baseness of his spirit he is a going to answer a public ques- 
tion, and they drore more tears into his eyes than ever the mustard 
does which he all day long lays on to the sawdust. (But it ain't 
strong.) Once, when Sniff had the repulsiveness to reach across to 
get the milk-pot to hand over for a baby, I see Our Missis in her 
rage catch him by both his shoulders, and spin him out into the 
Bandolining Room. 

But Mrs. Sniff, — how different ! She's the one ! She's the one 
as you'll notice to be always looking another way from you, when 
you look at her. She's the one with the small waist buckled in 
tight in front, and with the lace cuffs at her wrists, which she puts 
on the edge of the counter before her, and stands a smoothing while 
the public foams. This smoothing the cuffs and looking another 
way while the public foams is the last accomplishment taught to 
the young ladies as come to Mugby to be finished by Our Missis ; 
and it's always taught by Mrs. Sniff. 

When Our Missis went away upon her journey, Mrs. Sniff was 
left in charge. She did hold the public in check most beautiful ! 
In all my time, I never see half so many cups of tea given without 



496 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

milk to people as wanted it with, nor half so many cups of tea with 
milk given to people as wanted it without. When foaming ensued, 
Mrs. Sniff would say: "Then you'd better settle it among your- 
selves, and change with one another." It was a most highly deli- 
cious lark. I enjoyed the Refreshmenting business more than ever, 
and was so glad I had took to it when young. 

Our Missis returned. It got circulated among the young ladies, 
and it as it might be penetrated to me through the crevices of the 
Bandolining Room, that she had Orrors to reveal, if revelations so 
contemptible could be dignified with the name. Agitation become 
awakened. Excitement was up in the stirrups. Expectation stood 
a-tiptoe. At length it was put forth that on our slacked evening 
in the week, and at our slackest time of that evening betwixt 
trains, Our Missis would give her views of foreign Refreshmenting, 
in the Bandolining Room. 

It was arranged tasteful for the purpose. The Bandolining table 
and glass was hid in a corner, a arm-chair was elevated on a pack- 
ing-case for Our Missis's ockypation, a table and a tumbler of water 
(no sherry in it, thankee) was placed beside it. Two of the pupils, 
the season being autumn, and hollyhocks and dahlias being in, orna- 
mented the wall with three devices in those flowers. On one might 
be read, "May Albion never Leaen;" on another "Keep the 
Public Down;" on another, "Our Refreshmenting Charter." 
The whole had a beautiful appearance, with which the beauty of 
the sentiments corresponded. 

On Our Missis's brow was wrote Severity, as she ascended the 
fatal platform. (Not that that was anythink new.) Miss Whiff 
and Miss Piff sat at her feet. Three chairs from the Waiting 
Room might have been perceived by a average eye, in front of her, 
on which the pupils was accommodated. Behind them a very close 
observer might have discerned a Boy. Myself. 

" Where," said Our Missis, glancing gloomily around, " is Sniff? " 

"I thought it better," answered Mrs. Sniff, "that he should not 
be let to come in. He is such an Ass." 

"No doubt," assented Our Missis. "But for that reason is it 
not desirable to improve his mind ? " 

" Oh, nothing will ever improve A?'m," said Mrs. Sniff. 

"However," pursued Our Missis, "call him in, Ezekiel." 

I called him in. The appearance of the low-minded cove was 
hailed with disapprobation from all sides, on account of his having 
brought his corkscrew with him. He pleaded " the force of habit." 

" The force ! " said Mrs. Sniff. " Don't let us have you talking 
about force, for Gracious' sake. There ! Do stand still where you 
are, with your back against the wall." 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 497 

He is a smiling piece of vacancy, and he smiled in the mean way 
in which he will even smile at the public if he gets a chance (lan- 
guage can say no meaner of him), and he stood upright near the 
door with the back of his head agin the wall, as if he was a waiting 
for somebody to come and measure his heighth for the Army, 

"I should not enter, ladies," says Our Missis, "on the revolting 
disclosures I am about to make, if it was not in the hope that they 
will cause you to be yet more implacable in the exercise of the 
power you wield in a constitutional country, and yet more devoted 
to the constitutional motto which I see before m»," — it was behind 
her, but the words sounded better so, — " ' May Albion never 
learn ! ' " 

Here the pupils as had made the motto admired it, and cried, 
" Hear ! Hear ! Hear ! " Sniff, showing an inclination to join 
in chorus, got himself frowned down by every brow. 

" The baseness of the French," pursued Our Missis, " as dis- 
played in the fawning nature of their Refreshmenting, equals, if 
not surpasses, anythink as was ever heard of the baseness of the 
celebrated Bonaparte." 

Miss Whiff, Miss Piff, and me, we drored a heavy breath, equal 
to saying, " We thought as much ! " Miss Whiff and Miss Piff 
seeming to object to my droring mine along with theirs, I drored 
another to aggravate 'em. 

"Shall I be believed," says Our Missis, with flashing eyes, 
" when I tell you that no sooner had I set my foot upon that 
treacherous shore " 

Here Sniff, either bursting out mad, or thinking aloud, says, in 
a low voice : " Feet. Plural, you know." 

The cowering that come upon him when he was spurned by all 
eyes, added to his being beneath contempt, was sufficient punish- 
ment for a cove so grovelling. In the midst of a silence rendered 
more impressive by the turned-up female noses with which it was 
pervaded. Our Missis went on : 

"Shall I be believed when I tell you, that no sooner had I 
landed," this word with a killing look at Sniff, "on that treacher- 
ous shore, than I was ushered into a Refreshment Room where 
there were — I do not exaggerate — actually eatable things to 
eat?" 

A groan burst from the ladies. I not only did myself the hon- 
our of jining, but also of lengthening it out. 

" Where there were," Our Missis added, " not only eatable things 
to eat, but also drinkable things to drink ? " 

A murmur, swelling almost into a scream, ariz. Miss Piff, 
trembling with indignation, called out, " Name 1 " 

2 k 



498 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

"I will name," said Our Missis. "There was roast fowls, hot 
and cold ; there was smoking roast veal surrounded with browned 
potatoes ; there was hot soup with (again I ask shall I be cred- 
ited 1) nothing bitter in it, and no flour to choke off the consumer ; 
there was a variety of cold dishes set off with jelly ; there was 
salad ; there was — mark me ! fresh pastry, and that of a light 
construction ; there was a luscious show of fruit ; there was bottles 
and decanters of sound small wine, of every size, and adapted tu 
every pocket ; the same odious statement will apply to brandy ; 
and these were set out upon the counter so that all could help 
themselves." 

Our Missis's lips so quivered, that Mrs. Sniff, though scarcely 
less convulsed than she were, got up and held the tumbler to them. 

"This," proceeds Our Missis, "was my first unconstitutional 
experience. Well would it have been if it had been my last and 
worst. But no. As I proceeded farther into that enslaved and 
ignorant land, its aspect became more hideous. I need not explain 
to this assembly the ingredients and formation of the British 
Refreshment sangwich ? " 

Universal laughter, — except from Sniff, who, as sangwich-cutter, 
shook his head in a state of the utmost dejection as he stood with 
it agin the wall. 

" Well ! " said Our Missis, with dilated nostrils. " Take a fresh, 
crisp, long, crusty penny loaf made of the whitest and best flour. 
Cut it longwise through the middle. Insert a fair and nicely fit- 
ting slice of ham. Tie a smart piece of ribbon round the middle 
of the whole to bind it together. Add at one end a neat wrapper 
of clean white paper by which to hold it. And the universal 
French Refreshment sangwich busts on your disgusted vision." 

A cry of "Shame!" from all — except Sniff, which rubbed his 
stomach with a soothing hand. 

"I need not," said Our Missis, "explain to this assembly the 
usual formation and fitting of the British Refreshment Room 1 " 

No, no, and laughter. Sniff again shaking his head in low 
spirits agin the wall. 

"Well," said Our Missis, "what would you say to a general 
decoration of everythink, to hangings (sometimes elegant), to easy 
velvet furniture, to abundance of little tables, to abundance of little 
seats, to brisk bright waiters, to great convenience, to a pervading 
cleanliness and tastefulness positively addressing the public, and 
making the Beast thinking itself worth the pains 1 " 

Contemptuous fury on the part of all the ladies. Mrs. Suift* 
looking as if she wanted somebody to hold her, and everybody else 
looking as if they'd rayther not. 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 499 

" Three times," said Our Missis, working herself into a truly 
terrimenjious state, — " three times did I see these shameful things, 
only between the coast and Paris, and not counting either : at 
Hazebroucke, at Arras, at Amiens. But worse remains. Tell me, 
what would you call a person who should propose in England that 
there should be kept, say at our own model Mugby Junction, pretty 
baskets, each holding an assorted cold lunch and dessert for one, 
each at a certain fixed price, and each within a passenger's power 
to take away, to empty in the carriage at perfect leisure, and to 
return at another station fifty or a hundred miles farther on 1 " 

There was disagreement what such a person should be called. 
Whether revolutionist, atheist. Bright (/ said him), or Un-English. 
Miss Piff" screeched her shrill opinion last, in the words : "A malig- 
nant maniac ! " 

"I adopt," says Our Missis, "the brand set upon such a person 
by the righteous indignation of my friend Miss Piff". A malignant 
maniac. Know, then, that that malignant maniac has sprung 
from the congenial soil of France, and that his malignant madness 
was in unchecked action on this same part of my journey." 

I noticed that Sniff' was a-rubbing his hands, and that Mrs. 
Sniff had got her eye upon him. But I did not take more particu- 
lar notice, owing to the excited state in which the young ladies 
was, and to feeling myself called upon to keep it up with a howl. 

" On my experience south of Paris," said Our Missis, in a deep 
tone, " I will not expatiate. Too loathsome were the task ! But 
fancy this. Fancy a guard coming round, with the train at full 
speed, to inquire how many for dinner. Fancy his telegraphing 
forward the number of dinners. Fancy every one expected, and 
the table elegantly laid for the complete party. Fancy a charming 
dinner, in a charming room, and the head-cook, concerned for the 
honour of every dish, superintending in his clean white jacket and 
cap. Fancy the Beast travelling six hundred miles on end, very 
fast, and with great punctuality, yet being taught to expect all 
this to be done for it ! " 

A spirited chorus of " The Beast ! " 

I noticed that Sniff was agin a-rubbing his stomach with a 
soothing hand, and that he had drored up one leg. But agin I 
didn't take particular notice, looking on myself as called upon to 
stimulate public feeling. It being a lark besides. 

" Putting everything together," said Our Missis, " French Re- 
freshmenting comes to this, and oh, it comes to a nice total ! First : 
eatable things to eat, and drinkable things to drink." 

A groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me. 

"Second : convenience, and even elegance." 



500 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

Another groan from the young ladies, kep' up by me. 

" Third : moderate charges." 

This time a groan from me, kep' up by the young ladies. 

"Fourth: — and here," says Our Missis, "I claim your angri- 
est sympathy, — attention, common civility, nay, even politeness ! " 

Me and the young ladies regularly raging mad all together. 

" And I cannot in conclusion," says Our Missis, with her spite- 
fullest sneer, "give you a completer pictur of that despicable 
nation (after what I have related), than assuring you that they 
wouldn't bear our constitutional ways and noble independence at 
Mugby Junction, for a single month, and that they would turn us 
to the right-about and put another system in our places, as soon 
as look at us ; perhaps sooner, for I do not believe they have the 
good taste to care to look at us twice." 

The swelling tumult was arrested in its rise. Sniff, bore away 
by his servile disposition, had drored up his leg with a higher and 
a higher relish, and was now discovered to be waving his corkscrew 
over his head. It was at this moment that Mrs. Sniff, who had 
kep' her eye upon him like the fabled obelisk, descended on her 
victim. Our Missis followed them both out, and cries was heard 
in the sawdust department. 

You come into the Down Refreshment Room, at the Junction, 
making believe you don't know me, and I'll pint you out with my 
right thumb over my shoulder which is Our Missis, and which is 
Miss Whiff, and which is Miss Piff, and which is Mrs. Sniff. But 
you won't get a chance to see Sniff, because he disappeared that 
night. Whether he perished, tore to pieces, I cannot say ; but 
his corkscrew alone remains, to bear witness to the servility of 
his disposition. 

Chapter IV. 

NO. 1 BRANCH LINE. — THE SIGNAL-MAN. 

" Halloa ! Below there ! " 

When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at 
the door of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short 
pole. One would have thought, considering the nature of the 
ground, that he could not have doubted from what quarter the 
voice came ; but instead of looking up to where I stood on the top 
of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he turned himself about, 
and looked down the Line. There was something remarkable in 
his manner of doing so, though I could not have said for my life 
what. But I know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, 
even though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in 




THE SIGNAL-MAN. 



502 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

the deep trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the 
glow of an angry sunset, that I had shaded my eyes with my hand 
before I saw him at all. 

" Halloa ! Below ! " 

From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and, 
raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him. 

" Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to 
you?" 

He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at 
him without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle 
question. Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth 
and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation, and an on- 
coming rush that caused me to start back, as though it had force 
to draw me down. When such vapour as rose to my height from 
this rapid train had passed me, and was skimming away over the 
landscape, I looked down again, and saw him refurling the flag he 
had shown while the train went by. 

I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed 
to regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up 
flag towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards 
distant. I called down to him, " All right ! " and made for that 
point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough 
zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed. 

The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It 
was made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter 
as I went down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough 
to give me time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion 
with which he had pointed out the path. 

When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see 
him again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the 
way by which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he 
were waiting for me to appear. He had his left hand at his chin, 
and that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast. 
His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness that I 
stopped a moment, wondering at it. 

I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level 
of the railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark 
sallow man, with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His 
post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw. On 
either side, a dripping-wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all view 
but a strip of sky ; the perspective one way only a crooked prolonga- 
tion of this great dungeon; the shorter perspective in the other 
direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and the gloomier 
entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture there 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 503 

was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight 
ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell ; 
and so mucli cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to 
me, as if I had left the natural world. 

Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him. 
Not even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one 
step, and lifted his hand. 

This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted 
my attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was 
a rarity, I should suppose ; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped ? In 
me, he merely saw a man who had been shut up within narrow 
limits all his life, and who, being at last set free, had a newly- 
awakened interest in these great works. To such purpose I spoke 
to him ; but I am far from sure of the terms I used ; for, besides 
that I am not happy in opening any conversation, there was some- 
thing in the man that daunted me. 

He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the 
tunnel's mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were miss- 
ing from it, and then looked at me. 

That light was part of his charge ? Was it not ? 

He ansv/ered in a low voice, — "Don't you know it is?" 

The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the 
fixed eyes and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. 
I have speculated since, whether there may have been infection in 
his mind. 

In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the action, I de- 
tected in his eyes some latent fear of me. This put the monstrous 
thought to flight. 

"You look at me," I said, forcing a smile, "as if you had a 
dread of me." 

" I was doubtful," he returned, " whether I had seen you before." 

"Where?" 

He pointed to the red light he had looked at. 

"There?" I said. 

Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), "Yes." 

"My good fellow, what should I do there ? However, be that as 
it may, I never was there, you may swear." 

"I think I may," he rejoined. "Yes ; I am sure I may." 

His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my remarks 
with readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had he much to do 
there? Yes; that was to say, he had enough responsibility to 
bear; but exactness and watchfulness were what was recjuired 
of him, and of actual work- — ^ manual labour — he had next to 
none. To change that signal, to trim those lights, and to turn 



504 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

this iron handle now and then, was all he had to do under that 
head. Regarding those many long and lonely hours of which I 
seemed to make so much, he could only say that the routine of 
his life had shaped itself into that form, and he had grown used 
to it. He had taught himself a language down here, — if only to 
know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of its 
jDronunciation, could be called learning it. He had also worked 
at fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra ; but he was, 
and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures. Was it necessary 
for him when on duty always to remain in that channel of damp 
air, and could he never rise into the sunshine from between those 
high stone walls ? Why, that depended upon times and circum- 
stances. Under some conditions there would be less upon the Line 
than under others, and the same held good as to certain hours of 
the day and night. In bright weather, he did choose occasions for 
getting a little above these lower shadows ; but, being at all times 
liable to be called by his electric bell, and at such times listening 
for it with redoubled anxiety, the relief was less than I would 
suppose. 

He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an 
official book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic 
instrument with its dial, face, and needles, and the little bell of 
which he had spoken. On my trusting that he would excuse the 
remark that he had been well educated, and (I hoped I might say 
without offence), perhaps educated above that station, he observed 
that instances of slight incongruity in such wise would rarely be 
found wanting among large bodies of men ; that he had heard it 
was so in workhouses, in the police force, even in that last des- 
perate resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or 
less, in any great railway staff. He had been, when young (if I 
could believe it, sitting in that hut, — he scarcely could), a student 
of natural philosophy, and had attended lectures ; but he had run 
wild, misused his opportunities, gone down, and never risen again. 
He had no complaint to offer about that. He had made his bed, 
and he lay upon it. It was far too late to make another. 

All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with 
his grave dark regards divided between me and the fire. He threw 
in the word, " Sir," from time to time, and especially when he re- 
ferred to his youth, — as though to request me to understand that 
he claimed to be nothing but what I found him. He was several 
times interrupted by the little bell, and had to read off messages, 
and send replies. Once he had to stand without the door, and 
display a flag as a train passed, and make some verbal communica- 
tion to the driver. In the discharge of his duties, I observed him 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 505 

to be remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking off his discourse at 
a syllable, and remaining silent until what he had to do was done. 

In a word, 1 should have set this man down as one of the safest 
of men to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance 
that while he was speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen 
colour, turned his face towards the little bell when it did not ring, 
opened the door of the hut (which was kept shut to exclude the 
unhealthy damp), and looked out towards the red light near the 
mouth of the tunnel. On both of those occasions, he came back 
to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him which I had remarked, 
without being able to define, when we were so far asunder. 

Said I, when I rose to leave him, "You almost make me think 
that I have met with a contented man." 

(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.) 

"I believe I used to be so," he rejoined, in the low voice in 
which he had first spoken; "but I am troubled, sir, I am 
troubled." 

He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said 
them, however, and I took them up quickly. 

" With what 1 What is your trouble ? " 

" It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult to 
speak of. If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell 
you." 

" But I expressly intend to make you another visit. Say, when 
shall it be?" 

"I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten 
to-morrow night, sir." 

"I will come at eleven." 

He thanked me, and went out at the aoor with me. " I'll show 
my white light, sir," he said, in his peculiar low voice, "till you 
have found the way up. When you have found it, don't call out ! 
And when you are at the top, don't call out ! " 

His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but 
I said no more than, " Very well." 

"And when you come down to-morrow night, don't call out! 
Let me ask you a parting question. What made you cry, ' Halloa ! 
Below there ! ' to-night ? " 

" Heaven knows," said I. "I cried something to that effect " 

" Not to that effect, sir. Those were the very words. I know 
them well." 

"Admit those were the very words. I said them, no doubt, 
because I saw you below." 

" For no other reason ? " 

" What other reason could I possibly have ? " 



506 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

"You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any 
supernatural way ? " 

"No." 

He wished me good night, and held up his light. I walked by 
the side of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensa- 
tion of a train coming behind me) until I found the path. It was 
easier to mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without 
any adventure. 

Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch 
of the zigzag next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven. 
He was waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on. "I 
have not called out," I said, when we came close together; "may 
I speak now?" "By all means, sir." "Good night, then, and 
here's my hand." " Good night, sir, and here's mine." With that 
we walked side by side to his box, entered it, closed the door, and 
sat down by the fire. 

"I have made up my mind, sir," he began, bending forward as 
soon as we were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above 
a whisper, "that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles 
me. I took you for some one else yesterday evening. That 
troubles me." 

"That mistake?" 

"No. That some one else." 

"Who is it?" 

"I don't know." 

"Like me?" 

" I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across 
the face, and the right arm is waved, — violently waved. This 
way." 

I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an 
arm gesticulating, with the utmost passion and vehemence, " For 
God's sake, clear the way ! " 

" One moonlight night," said the man, " I was sitting here, when 
I heard a voice cry, ' Halloa ! Below there ! ' I started up, looked 
from that door, and saw this Some one else standing by the red 
light near the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you. The 
voice seemed hoarse with shouting, and it cried, ' Look out ! Look 
out ! ' And then again, ' Halloa ! Below there ! Look out ! ' I 
caught up my lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the figure, 
calling, 'What's wrong? What has happened? Where?' It 
stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel. I advanced so close 
upon it that I wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. 
I ran right up at it, and had my hand stretched out to pull the 
sleeve away, when it was gone." 



( 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 607 

" Into the tunnel ? " said I, 

" No. I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards. I stopped, 
and held my lamp above my head, and saw the figures of the 
measured distance, and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls 
and trickling through the arch. I ran out again faster than I had 
run in (for I had a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me), and 
I looked all round the red light with my own red light, and I 
went up the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came down 
again, and ran back here. I telegraphed both ways, 'An alarm 
has been given. Is anything wrong?' The swiswer came back, 
both ways, 'All well.'" 

Kesisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, 
I showed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense 
of sight ; and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate 
nerves that minister to the functions of the eye, were known to 
have often troubled patients, some of whom had become conscious 
of the nature of their affliction, and had even proved it by experi- 
ments upon themselves. " As to an imaginary cry," said I, "do but 
listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we 
speak so low, and to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires." 

That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening 
for a while, and he ought to know something of the wind and the 
wires, — he who so often passed long winter nights there, alone 
and watching. But he would beg to remark that he had not fin- 
ished. 

I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching 
my arm, — 

" Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident 
on this Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded 
were brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the 
figure had stood," 

A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against 
it. It was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable 
coincidence, calculated deeply to impress his mind. But it was 
unquestionable that remarkable coincidences did continually occur, 
and they nmst be taken into account in dealing with such a subject. 
Though to be sure I must admit, I added (for I thought I sav\r 
that he was going to bring the objection to bear upon me), men of 
common sense did not allow much for coincidences in making the 
ordinary calculations of life. 

He again begged to remark that he had not finished. 

I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions. 

"This," he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glanc- 
ing over his shoulder with hollow eyes, "was just a year ago. 



508 MUGBY JUNCTION. 



Six or seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise 
and shock, when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, stand- 
ing at the door, looked towards the red light, and saw the spectre 
again." He stopped, with a fixed look at me. 

"Did it cry out?" 

" No. It was silent." 

" Did it wave its arm 1 " 

" No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands 
before the face. Like this." 

Once more I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action 
of mourning. I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on 
tombs. 

"Did you go up to it?" 

"I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly 
because it had turned me faint. When I went to the door again, 
daylight was above me, and the ghost was gone." 

" But nothing followed ? Nothing came of this ?" 

He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice, 
giving a ghastly nod each time : 

" That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at 
a carriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of 
hands and heads, and something waved. I saw it just in time to 
signal the driver, Stop ! He shut off, and put his brake on, but 
the train drifted past here a hundred and fifty yards or more. I 
ran after it, and, as I went along, heard terrible screams and cries. 
A beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the com- 
partments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor 
between us." 

Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the 
boards at which he pointed to himself 

"True, sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you." 

I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth 
was very dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a 
long lamenting wail. 

He resumed. " Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is 
troubled. The spectre came back a week ago. Ever since, it has 
been there, now and again, by fits and starts." 

"AttheUght?" 

"At the Danger-light." 

" What does it seem to do ? " 

He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, 
that former gesticulation of, " For God's sake, clear the way ! " 

Then he went on. "I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to 
me, for many minutes together, in an agonised manner, 'Below 



/I 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 509 

there ! Look out ! Look out ! ' It stands waving to me. It 
rings my little bell — " 

I caught at that. "Did it ring your bell yesterday evening 
when I was here, and you went to the door ? " 

" Twice." 

"Why, see," said I, " how your imagination misleads you. My 
eyes were on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell, and if I 
am a living man, it did not ring at those times. No, nor at any 
other time, except when it was rung in the natural course of physi- 
cal things by the station communicating with you." 

He shook his head. " I have never made a. mistake as to that 
yet, sir. I have never confused the spectre's ring with the man's. 
The ghost's ring is a strange vibration in the bell that it derives 
from nothing else, and I have not asserted that the bell stirs to 
the eye. I don't wonder that you failed to hear it. But / heard 
it." 

" And did the spectre seem to be there, when you looked out ? " 

" It WAS there." 

" Both times ? " 

He repeated firmly : " Both times." 

" Will you come to the door with me, and look for it now ? " 

He bit his under lip as though he were somewhat unwilling, but 
arose. I opened the door, and stood on the step, while he stood 
in the doorway. There was the Danger-light. There was the 
dismal mouth of the tunnel. There were the high, wet stone walls 
of the cutting. There were the stars above them. 

" Do you see it ? " I asked him, taking particular note of his 
face. His eyes were prominent and strained, but not very much 
more so, perhaps, than my own had been when I had directed 
them earnestly towards the same spot. 

" No," he answered. " It is not there." 

"Agreed," said I. 

We went in again, shut the door, and resumed our seats. I was 
thinking how best to improve this advantage, if it might be called 
one, when he took up the conversation in such a matter-of-course 
way, so assuming that there could be no serious question of fact 
between us, that I felt myself placed in the weakest of positions. 

"By this time you will fully understand, sir," he said, "that 
what troubles me so dreadfully is the question, What does the 
spectre mean 1 " 

I was not sure, I told him, that I did fully understand. 

"What is its warning against?" he said, ruminating, with his 
eyes on the fire, and only by times turning them on me. " What 
is the danger 1 Where is the danger 1 There is danger over- 



510 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

hanging somewhere on the Line. Some dreadful calamity will 
happen. It is not to be doubted this third time, after what has 
gone before. But surely this is a cruel haunting of me. What 
can /do?" 

He pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the drops from his 
heated forehead. 

" If I telegraph Danger, on either side of me, or on both, I can 
give no reason for it," he went on, wiping the palms of his hands. 
" I should get into trouble, and do no good. They would think 
I was mad. This is the way it would work, — Message : ' Dan- 
ger ! Take care ! ' Answer : ' What Danger 1 Where ? ' Mes- 
sage : ' Don't know. But, for God's sake, take care ! ' They 
would displace me. What else could they do ? " 

His pain of mind was most pitiable to see. It was the mental 
torture of a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an 
unintelligible responsibility involving life. 

"When it first stood under the Danger-light," he went on, put- 
ting his dark hair back from his head, and drawing his hands out- 
ward across and across his temples in an extremity of feverish 
distress, "why not tell me where that accident was to happen, 

— if it must happen 1 Why not tell me how it could be averted, 

— if it could have been averted 1 When on its second coming it 
hid its face, why not tell me, instead, ' She is going to die. Let 
them keep her at home'? If it came, on those two occasions, 
only to show me that its w^arnings were true, and so to prepare me 
for the third, why not warn me plainly now ? And I, Lord help 
me ! A mere poor signal-man on this solitary station ! Why 
not go to somebody with credit to be believed, and power to 
act?" 

When I saw him in this state, I saw that for the poor man's 
sake, as well as for the public safety, what I had to do for the time 
was to compose his mind. Therefore, setting aside all question of 
reality or unreality between us, I represented to him that whoever 
thoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it 
was his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not 
understand these confounding Appearances. In this eff'ort I suc- 
ceeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his con- 
viction. He became calm ; the occupations incidental to his post 
as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his atten- 
tion : and I left him at two in the morning. I had offered to stay 
through the night, but he would not hear of it. 

That I more than once looked back at the red light as I 
ascended the pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I 
should have slept but poorly if my bed had been under it, I see 



MUGBY JUNCTION. 611 

no reason to conceal. Nor did I like the two sequences of the 
accident and the dead girl. I see no reason to conceal that either. 

But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration how 
ought I to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure 1 I 
had proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and 
exact ; but how long might he remain so, in his state of mind 1 
Though in a subordinate position, still he held a most important 
trust, and would I (for instance) like to stake my own life on the 
chances of his continuing to execute it with precision 1 

Unable to overcome a feeling that there would be something 
treacherous in my communicating what he had told me to his supe- 
riors in the Company, without first being plain with himself and 
proposing a middle course to him, I ultimately resolved to oflfer 
to accompany him (otherwise keeping his secret for the present) 
to the wisest medical practitioner we could hear of in those parts, 
and to take his opinion. A change in his time of duty would 
come round next night, he had apprised me, and he would be off 
an hour or two after sunrise, and on again soon after sunset. I 
had appointed to return accordingly. 

Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to 
enjoy it. The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the 
field-path near the top of the deep cutting. I would extend my 
walk for an hour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an 
hour back, and it would then be time to go to my signal-man's 
box. 

Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink, and mechani- 
cally looked down, from the point from which I had first seen him. 
I cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me, when, close at the 
mouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man, with his left 
sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm. 

The nameless horror that oppressed me passed in a moment, for 
in a moment I saw that this appearance of a man was a man in- 
deed, and that there was a little group of other men, standing at a 
short distance, to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he 
made. The Danger-light was not yet lighted. Against its shaft, 
a little low hut, entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden 
supports and tarpaulin. It looked no bigger than a bed. 

With an irresistible sense that something was wrong, — with a 
flashing self-reproachful fear that fatal mischief had come of my 
leaving the man there, and causing no one to be sent to over- 
look or correct what he did, — I descended the notched path with 
all the speed I could make. 

" What is the matter?" I asked the men. 

" Signal-man killed this morning, sir." 



512 MUGBY JUNCTION. 

" Not the man belonging to that box ? " 

"Yes, sir." 

" Not the man I know ? " 

"You will recognise him, sir, if you knew him," said the man 
who spoke for the others, solemnly uncovering his own head, and 
raising an end of the tarpaulin, "for his face is quite composed." 

" 0, how did this happen, how did this happen ? " I asked, turn- 
ing from one to another as the hut closed in again. 

" He was cut down by an engine, sir. No man in England knew 
his work better. But somehow he was not clear of the outer rail. 
It was just at broad day. He had struck the light, and had the 
lamp in his hand. As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back 
was towards her, and she cut him down. That man drove her, and 
was showing how it happened. Show the gentleman, Tom." 

The man, who wore a rough dark dress, stepped back to his for- 
mer place at the mouth of the tunnel. 

" Coming round the curve in the tunnel, sir," he said, " I saw 
him at the end, like as if I saw him down a perspective-glass. 
There was no time to check speed, and I knew him to be very 
careful. As he didn't seem to take heed of the whistle, I shut it 
off when we were running down upon him, and called to him as 
loud as I could call." 

" What did you say ? " 

" I said, ' Below there ! Look out ! Look out ! For God's 
sake, clear the way ! ' " 

I started. 

" Ah ! it was a dreadful time, sir. I never left ofiF calling to him. 
I put this arm before my eyes not to see, and I waved this arm to 
the last ; but it was no use." 

Without prolonging the narrative to dwell on any one of its 
curious circumstances more than on any other, I may, in closing it, 
point out the coincidence that the warning of the engine-driver 
included, not only the words whicli the unfortunate signal-man had 
repeated to me as haunting him, but also the words which I myself 
— not he — had attached, and that only in my own mind, to the 
gesticulation he had imitated. 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 513 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 

THE OVERTURE. 



Day of the month and year, November the thirtieth, one thou- 
sand eight hundred and thirty-five. London Time by the great 
clock of Saint Paul's, ten at night. All the legser London churches 
strain their metallic throats. Some, flippantly begin before the 
heavy bell of the great cathedral ; some, tardily begin three, four, 
half a dozen, strokes behind it ; all are insufficiently near accord, 
to leave a resonance in the air, as if the winged father who devours 
his children, had made a sounding sweep with his gigantic scythe in 
flying over the city. 

What is this clock lower than most of the rest, and nearer to 
the ear, that lags so far behind to-night as to strike into the vibra- 
tion alone 1 This is the clock of the Hospital for Foundling Chil- 
dren. Time was, when the Foundlings were received without 
question in a cradle at the gate. Time is, when inquiries are 
made respecting them, and they are taken as by favour from the 
mothers who relinquish all natural knowledge of them and claim 
to them for evermore. 

The moon is at the full, and the night is fair with light clouds. 
The day has been otherwise than fair, for slush and mud, thickened 
with the droppings of heavy fog, lie black in the streets. The 
veiled lady who flutters up and down near the postern-gate of 
the Hospital for Foundling Children has need to be well shod to- 
night. 

She flutters to and fro, avoiding the stand of hackney-coaches, 
and often pausing in the shadow of the western end of the great 
quadrangle wall, with her face turned towards the gate. As above 
her there is the purity of the moonlit sky, and below her there are 
the defilements of the pavement, so may she, haply, be divided in 
her mind between two vistas of reflection or experience 1 As her 
footprints crossing and recrossing one another have made a laby- 
rinth in the mire, so may her track in life have involved itself in an 
intricate and unravellable tangle ? 

The postern-gate of the Hospital for Foundling Children opens, 
and a young woman comes out. The lady stands aside, observes 
closely, sees that the gate is quietly closed again from within, and 
follows the young woman. 

Two or three streets have been traversed in silence before she, 

2 1. 




Hiiii///f^MiUi,iiiHii,.„t i'i .■iS^...^^\" ^ _^ 



KO TliUKOUOHFARE, 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 515 

following close behind tlie object of her attention, stretches out her 
hand and touches her. Then the young woman stops and looks 
round, startled. 

"You touched me last night, and, when I turned my head, you 
would not speak. Why do you follow me like a silent ghost ? " 

"It was not," returned the lady, in a low voice, " that I would 
not speak, but that I could not when I tried." 

" What do you want of me ? I have never done you any harm ? " 
" Never." 

" Do I know you ? " ^ 

" No." 

" Then what can you w^ant of me ? " 

" Here are two guineas in this paper. Take my poor little pres- 
ent, and I will tell you." 

Into the young woman's face, which is honest and comely, conies 
a flush as she replies : " There is neither grown person nor child 
in all the large establishment that I belong to, who hasn't a good 
word for Sally. I am Sally. Could I be so well thought of, if I 
was to be bought 1 " 

" I do not mean to buy you ; I mean only to reward you very 
slightly." 

Sally firmly, but not urgently, closes and puts back the ofifering 
hand. " If there is anything that I can do for you, ma'am, that I 
will not do for its own sake, you are much mistaken in me if you 
think that I will do it for money. What is it you want 1 " 

" You are one of the nurses or attendants at the Hospital ; I saw 
you leave to-night and last night." 
"Yes, lam. I am Sally." 

"There is a pleasant patience in your face which makes me 
beheve that very young children would take readily to you." 
" God bless 'em ! So they do." 

The lady lifts her veil, and shows a face no older than the nurse's. 
A face far more refined and capable than hers, but wild and worn 
with sorrow. 

" I am the miserable mother of a baby lately received under your 
care. I have a prayer to make to you." 

Instinctively respecting the confidence which has drawn aside 
the veil, Sally — whose ways are all ways of simplicity and spon- 
taneity — replaces it, and begins to cry. 

"You will listen to my prayer?" the lady urges. "You will 
not be deaf to the agonised entreaty of such a broken suppliant as 
I am 1 " 

" Oh, dear, dear, dear ! " cries Sally. " What shall I say, or can 
I say ! Don't talk of prayers. Prayers are to be put up to the 



516 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

Good Father of All, and not to nurses and such. And there ! I am 
only to hold my place for half a year longer, till another young 
woman can be trained up to it. I am going to be married. I 
shouldn't have been out last night, and I shouldn't have been out 
to-night, but that my Dick (he is the young man I am going to 
be married to) lies ill, and I help his mother and sister to watch 
him. Don't take on so, don't take on so ! " 

"0 good Sally, dear Sally," moans the lady, catching at her 
dress entreatingly. "As you are hopeful and I am hopeless; as a 
fair way in life is before you, which can never, never, be before me ; 
as you can aspire to become a respected wife, and as you can aspire 
to become a proud mother ; as you are a living loving woman, and 
must die ; for God's sake hear my distracted petition ! " 

" Deary, deary, deary me ! " cries Sally, her desperation culminat- 
ing in the pronoun, " what am I ever to do ? And there ! See 
how you turn my own w^ords back upon me. I tell you I am going 
to be married, on purpose to make it clearer to you that I am 
going to leave, and therefore couldn't help you if I would. Poor 
Thing, and you make it seem to my own self as if I was cruel in 
going to be married and not helping you. It ain't kind. Now, is 
it kind, Poor Thing ? " 

" Sally ! Hear me, my dear. My entreaty is for no help in the 
future. It applies to what is past. It is only to be told in two 
words." 

"There! This is w^orse and worse," cries Sally, "supposing 
that I understand what two words you mean." 

"You do understand. What are the names they have given my 
poor baby 1 I ask no more than that. I have read of the customs 
of the place. He has been christened in the chapel, and registered 
by some surname in the book. He was received last Monday 
evening. What have they called him ? " 

Down upon her knees in the foul mud of the bye-way into which 
they have strayed — an empty street without a thoroughfare, giv- 
ing on the dark gardens of the Hospital — the lady would drop in 
her passionate entreaty, but that SaUy prevents her. 

" Don't ! Don't ! You make me feel as if I was setting myself 
up to be good. Let me look in your pretty face again. Put your 
two hands in mine. Now, promise. You will never ask me any- 
thing more than the two words ? " 

" Never ! Never ! " 

" You wiU never put them to a bad use, if I say them ? " 

" Never ! Never ! " 

"Walter Wilding." 

The lady lays her face upon the nurse's breast, draws her close in 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 517 

her embrace with both arms, murmurs a blessing and the words, 
" Kiss him for me ! " and is gone. 

Day of the month and year, the first Sunday in October, one thou- 
sand eight hundred and forty-seven. London Time by the great 
clock of Saint Paul's, half-past one in the afternoon. The clock of 
the Hospital for Foundling Children is well up with the Cathedral 
to-day. Service in the chapel is over, and the Foundling Children 
are at dinner. 

There are numerous lookers-on at the dinner, as the custom is. 
There are two or three governors, whole families from the congre- 
gation, smaller groups of both sexes, individual stragglers of various 
degrees. The bright autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wards ; 
and the heavy-framed windows through which it shines, and the 
panelled walls on which it strikes, are such windows and such walls 
as pervade Hogarth's pictures. The girls' refectory (including that 
of the younger children) is the principal attraction. Neat attend- 
ants silently glide about the orderly and silent tables ; the lookers- 
on move or stop as the fancy takes them ; comments in whispers on 
face such a number from such a window are not unfrequent ; many 
of the faces are of a character to fix attention. Some of the vis- 
itors from the outside public are accustomed visitors. They have 
established a speaking acquaintance with the occupants of partic- 
ular seats at the tables, and halt at those points to bend down 
and say a word or two. It is no disparagement to their kindness 
that those points are generally points where personal attractions 
are. The monotony of long spacious rooms and the double lines 
of faces is agreeably relieved by these incidents, although so 
slight. 

A veiled lady, who has no companion, goes among the company. 
It would seem that curiosity and opportunity have never brought 
her there before. She has the air of being a little troubled by the 
sight, and, as she goes the length of the tables, it is with a hesitat- 
ing step and an uneasy manner. At length she comes to the re- 
fectory of the boys. They are so much less popular than the girls 
that it is bare of visitors when she looks in at the doorway. 

But just within the doorway, chances to stand, inspecting, an 
elderly female attendant : some order of matron or housekeeper. To 
whom the lady addresses natural questions : As, how many boys 1 
At what age are they usually put out in life ? Do they often take 
a fancy to the sea? So, lower and lower in tone until the lady puts 
the question : " Which is Walter Wilding ? " 

Attendant's head shaken. Against the rules. 

" You know which is Walter Wilding 1 " 



518 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

So keenly does the attendant feel the closeness with which the 
lady's eyes examine her face, that she keeps her own eyes fast upon 
the floor, lest by wandering in the right direction they should be- 
tray her. 

" I know which is Walter Wilding, but it is not my place, ma'am, 
to tell names to visitors." 

" But you can show me without telling me." 

The lady's hand moves quietly to the attendant's hand. Pause 
and silence. 

" I am going to pass round the tables," says the lady's interlocu- 
tor, without seeming to address her. " Follow me with your eyes. 
The boy that I stop and speak to, will not matter to you. But the 
boy that I touch, will be Walter Wilding. Say nothing more to 
me, and move a little away." 

Quickly acting on the hint, the lady passes on into the room, and 
looks about her. After a few moments, the attendant, in a staid 
official way, walks down outside the line of tables commencing on 
her left hand. She goes the wiiole length of the line, turns, and 
comes back on the inside. Very slightly glancing in the lady's di- 
rection, she stoops, bends forward, and speaks. The boy whom she 
addresses, lifts his head and replies. Good humouredly and easily, 
as she listens to what he says, she lays her hand upon the shoulder 
of the next boy on his right. That the action may be well noted, 
she keeps her hand on the shoulder while speaking in return, and 
pats it twice or thrice before moving away. She completes her 
tour of the tables, touching no one else, and passes out by a door at 
the opposite end of the long room. 

Dinner is done, and the lady, too, walks down outside the line of 
tables commencing on her left hand, goes the whole length of the 
line, turns, and comes back on the inside. Other people have strolled 
in, fortunately for her, and stand sprinkled about. She lifts her 
veil, and, stopping at the touched boy, asks how old he is ? 

"I am twelve, ma'am," he answers, with his bright eyes fixed on 
hers. 

" Are you well and happy 1 " 

"Yes, ma'am." 

" May you take these sweetmeats from my hand ? " 

" If you please to give them to me." 

In stooping low for the purpose, the lady touches the boy's face 
with her forehead and with her hair. Then, lowering her veil again, 
she passes on, and passes out without looking back. 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 519 

Act I. 

THE CURTAIN RISES. 

In a courtyard in the City of London, which was No Thorough- 
fare either for vehicles or foot-passengers ; a courtyard diverging 
from a steep, a sHppery, and a winding street connecting Tower- 
street with the Middlesex shore of the Thames ; stood the place of 
business of Wilding and Co. Wine Merchants. Probably, as a jo- 
cose acknowledgment of the obstructive character of this main ap- 
proach, the point nearest to its base at which one could take the 
river (if .so inodorously minded) bore the appellation Break-Neck- 
Stairs. The courtyard itself had likewise been descriptively enti- 
tled in old time, Cripple Corner. 

Years before the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, 
people had left off taking boat at Break-Neck-Stairs, and watermen 
had ceased to ply there. The slimy little causeway had dropped 
into the river by a slow process of suicide, and two or three stumps 
of piles and a rusty iron mooring-ring were all that remained of the 
departed Break-Neck glories. Sometimes, indeed, a laden coal 
barge would bump itself into the place, and certain laborious 
heavers, seemingly mud-engendered, would arise, deliver the cargo 
in the neighbourhood, shove off, and vanish ; but at most times the 
only commerce of Break-Neck-Stairs arose out of the conveyance of 
casks and bottles, both full and empty, both to and from the cellars 
of Wilding and Co. Wine Merchants. Even that commerce was 
but occasional, and through three-fourths of its rising tides the dirty 
indecorous drab of a river would come solitarily oozing and lapping 
at the rusty ring, as if it had heard of the Doge and the Adriatic, 
and wanted to be married to the great conserver of its filthiness, the 
Right Honourable the Lord Mayor. 

Some two hundred and fifty yards on the right, up the opposite 
hill (approaching it from the "low ground of Break-Neck-Stairs) was 
Cripple Corner. There was a pump in Cripple Corner, there was 
a tree in Cripple Corner. All Cripple Corner belonged to Wilding 
and Co. Wine Merchants. Their cellars burrowed under it, their 
mansion towered over it. It really had been a mansion in the days 
when merchants inhabited the City, and had a ceremonious shelter 
to the doorway without visible support, like the sounding-board 
over an old pulpit. It had also a number of long narrow strips of 
window, so disposed in its grave brick front as to render it sym- 
metrically ugly. It had also, on its roof, a cupola with a bell in it. 

" When a man at five-and-twenty can put his hat on, and can say 
'this hat covers the owner of this property and of the business 



520 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

which is transacted on this property,' I consider, Mr. Bin trey, that, 
without being boastful, he may be allowed to be deeply thankful. 
I don't know how it may appear to you, but so it appears to me," 

Thus Mr. Walter Wilding to his man of law, in his own count- 
ing-house ; taking his hat down from its peg to suit the action to 
the word, and hanging it up again when he had done so, not to 
overstep the modesty of nature. 

An innocent, open-speaking, unused-looking man, Mr. Walter 
Wilding, with a remarkably pink and white complexion, and a 
figure much too bulky for so young a man, though of a good 
stature. With crispy curling brown hair, and amiable bright blue 
eyes. An extremely communicative man : a man with whom loquac- 
ity was the irrestrainable outpouring of contentment and grati- 
tude. Mr. Bintrey, on the other hand, a cautious man with twin- 
kling beads of eyes in a large overhanging bald head, who inwardly 
but intensely enjoyed the comicality of openness of speech, or hand, 
or heart. 

" Yes," said Mr. Bintrey. " Yes. Ha, ha ! " 

A decanter, two wine-glasses, and a plate of biscuits, stood on 
the desk. 

"You like this forty-five year old port wine?" said Mr. 
Wilding. 

" Like it ? " repeated Mr. Bintrey. " Rather, sir ! " 

" It's from the best corner of our best forty-five year old bin," 
said Mr. Wilding. 

" Thank you, sir," said Mr. Bintrey. " It's most excellent." 

He laughed again, as he held up his glass and ogled it, at the 
highly ludicrous idea of giving away such wine. 

"And now," said Wilding, with a childish enjoyment in the 
discussion of afikirs, " I think we have got everything straight, Mr. 
Bintrey." 

" Everything straight," said Bintrey. 

" A partner secured " 

" Partner secured," said Bintrey. 

" A housekeeper advertised for 



" Housekeeper advertised for," said Bintrey, " 'apply personally 
at Cripple Corner, Great Tower-street, from ten to twelve ' — to- 
morrow, by the bye." 

" My late dear mother's affairs wound up " 

" Wound up," said Bintrey. 

" And all charges paid." 

"And all charges paid," said Bintrey, with a chuckle : probably 
occasioned by the droll circumstance that they had been paid with- 
out a haggle. 



I 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 521 

"The mention of my late clear mother," Mr. Wilding continued, 
his eyes filling with tears and his pocket-handkerchief drying them, 
" unmans me still, Mr. Bintrey. You know how I loved her ; you 
(her lawyer) know how she loved me. The utmost love of mother 
and child was cherished between us, and we never experienced one 
moment's division or unhappiness from the time when she took me 
under her care. Thirteen years in all ! Thirteen years under my 
late dear mother's care, Mr. Bintrey, and eight of them her confi- 
dentially acknowledged son ! You know the story, Mr. Bintrey, 
who but you, sir ! " Mr. Wilding sobbed and dried his eyes, with- 
out attempt at concealment, during these remarks. 

Mr. Bintrey enjoyed his comical port, and said, after rolling it in 
his mouth : " I know the story." 

" My late dear mother, Mr. Bintrey," pursued the wine-merchant, 
'• had been deeply deceived, and had cruelly suffered. But on that 
subject my late dear mother's lips were for ever sealed. By whom 
deceived, or under what circumstances. Heaven only knows. My 
late dear mother never betrayed her betrayer." 

"She had made up her mind," said Mr. Bintrey, again turning 
his wine on his palate, " and she could hold her peace." An amused 
twinkle in his eyes pretty plainly added — "A devilish deal better 
than you ever will ! " 

"'Honour,'" said Mr. Wilding, sobbing as he quoted from the 
Commandments, " ' thy father and thy mother, that thy days may 
be long in the land.' When I was in the Foundling, Mr. Bintrey, 
I was at such a loss how to do it, that I apprehended my days would 
be short in the land. But I afterwards came to honour my mother 
deeply, profoundly. And I honour and revere her memory. For 
seven happy years, Mr. Bintrey," pursued Wilding, still with the 
same innocent catching in his breath, and the same unabashed tears, 
" did my excellent mother article me to my predecessors in this busi- 
ness, Pebbleson Nephew. Her aff'ectionate forethought likewise 
apprenticed me to the Vintners' Company, and made me in time a 
Free Vintner, and — and — everything else that the best of mothers 
could desire. When I came of age, she bestowed her inherited 
share in this business upon me ; it was her money that afterwards 
bought out Pebbleson Nephew, and painted in Wilding and Co. ; 
it was she who left me everything she possessed, but the mourn- 
ing ring you wear. And yet, Mr. Bintrey," with a fresh burst of 
honest affection, " she is no more. It is a little over half a year 
since she came into the Corner to read on that door-post with her 
own eyes, AVilding and Co. Wine Merchants. And yet she is 
no more ! " 

"Sad. But the common lot, Mr. Wilding," observed Bintrey. 



522 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

"At some time or other we must all be no more." He placed the 
forty-five year old port wine in the universal condition, with a relish- 
ing sigh. 

" So now, Mr. Bintrey," pursued Wilding, putting away his 
pocket-handkerchief, and smoothing his eyelids with his fingers, "now 
that I can no longer show my love and honour for the dear parent 
to whom my heart was mysteriously turned by Nature when she 
first spoke to me, a strange lady, I sitting at our Sunday dinner- 
table in the Foundling, I can at least show that I am not ashamed 
of having been a Foundling, and that I, who never knew a father 
of my own, wish to be a father to all in my employment. There- 
fore," continued AVilding, becoming enthusiastic in his loquacity, 
" therefore, I want a thoroughly good housekeeper to undertake 
this dwelling-house of Wilding and Co. Wine Merchants, Cripple 
Corner, so that I may restore in it some of the old relations betwixt 
employer and employed ! So that I may live in it on the spot 
where my money is made ! So that I may daily sit at the head of 
the table at which the people in my employment eat togetlier, and 
may eat of the same roast and boiled, and drink of the same beer ! 
So that the people in my employment may lodge under the same 
roof with me ! So that we may one and all 1 beg your par- 
don, Mr. Bintrey, but that old singing in my head has suddenly 
come on, and I shall feel obliged if you will lead me to the pump." 

Alarmed by the excessive pinkness of his client, Mr. Bintrey lost 
not a moment in leading him forth into the courtyard. It was 
easily done, for the counting-house in which they talked together 
opened on to it, at one side of the dwelHng-house. There, the at- 
torney pumped with a will, obedient to a sign from the client, and 
the client laved his head and face with both hands, and took a hearty 
drink. After these remedies, he declared himself much better. 

"Don't let your good feelings excite you," said Bintrey, as they 
returned to the counting-house, and Mr. Wilding dried himself on a 
jack-towel behind an inner door. 

"No, no. I won't," he returned, looking out of the towel. "I 
won't. I have not been confused, have I ? " 

"Not at all. Perfectly clear." 

" Where did I leave off, Mr. Bintrey?" 

"Well, you left off — but I wouldn't excite myself, if I was you, 
by taking it up again just yet." 

" I'll take care. I'll take care. The singing in my head came 
on at where, Mr. Bintrey 1 " 

" At roast, and boiled, and beer," answered the lawyer, prompt- 
ing — "lodging under the same roof — and one and all " 

"Ah ! And one and all singing in the head together " 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 523 

" Do you know I really would not let my good feelings excite me, 
if I was you," hinted the lawyer again, anxiously. " Try some more 
pump." 

"No occasion, no occasion. All right, Mr. Bintrey. And one 
and all forming a kind of family ! You see, Mr. Bintrey, I was not 
used in my childhood to that sort of individual existence which most 
individuals have led, more or less, in their childhood. After that 
time I became absorbed in my late dear mother. Having lost her, 
I find that I am more fit for being one of a body than one by my- 
self one. To be that, and at the same time to do my duty to those 
dependent on me, and attach them to me, has . a patriarchal and 
pleasant air about it. I don't know how it may appear to you, Mr. 
Bintrey, but so it appears to me." 

" It is not I who am all-important in the case, but you," returned 
Bintrey. " Consequently, how it may appear to me, is of very small 
importance." 

" It appears to me," said Mr. Wilding, in a glow, "hopeful, use- 
ful, de-lightful ! " 

"Do you know," hinted the lawyer again, "I really would not 
ex " 

" I am not going to. Then there's Handel." 

" There's who ? " asked Bintrey. 

" Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, 
Mendelssohn. I know the choruses to those anthems by heart. 
Foundling Chapel Collection. Why shouldn't we learn them to- 
gether ! " 

" Who learn them together ? " asked the lawyer, rather shortly. 

"Employer and employed." 

" Ay, ay ! " returned Bintrey, mollified ; as if he had half expected 
the answer to be. Lawyer and client. " That's another thing." 

" Not another thing, Mr. Bintrey ! The same thing. A part of 
the bond among us. We will form a Choir in some quiet church 
near the Corner here, and, having sung together of a Sunday with 
a relish, we will come home and take an early dinner together with 
a relish. The object that I have at heart now, is to get this system 
well in action without delay, so that my new partner may find it 
founded when he enters on his partnership." 

"All good be with it!" exclaimed Bintrey, rising. "May it 
prosper ! Is Joey Ladle to take a share in Handel, Mozart, Haydn, 
Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, and Mendelssohn 1 " 

" I hope so." 

" I wish them all well out of it," returned Bintrey, with much 
heartiness. " Good-bye, sir." 

They shook hands and parted. Then (first knocking with his 



524 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

knuckles for leave) entered to Mr. Wilding, from a door of commu- 
nication between his private counting-house and that in which his 
clerks sat, the Head Cellarman of the cellars of Wilding and Co. 
Wine Merchants, and erst Head Cellarman of the cellars of Pebble- 
son Nephew. The Joey Ladle in question. A slow and ponder- 
ous man, of the drayman order of human architecture, dressed in a 
corrugated suit and bibbed apron, apparently a composite of door- 
mat and rhinoceros-hide. 

" Respecting this same boarding and lodging, Young Master 
Wilding," said he. 

"Yes, Joey?" 

"Speaking for myself, Young Master Wilding — and I never 
did speak and I never do speak for no one else — / don't want no 
boarding nor yet no lodging. But if you wish to board me and to 
lodge me, take me. I can peck as well as most men. Where I 
peck, ain't so high a object with me as What I peck. Nor even 
so high a object with me as How Much I peck. Is all to live in 
the house. Young Master Wilding ? The two other cellarmen, the 
three porters, the two 'prentices, and the odd men ? " 

" Yes. I hope we shall all be an united family, Joey." 

"Ah ! " said Joey. " I hope they may be." 

" They ? Eather say we, Joey." 

Joey Ladle shook his head. "Don't look to me to make we on 
it, Young Master Wilding, not at my time of life and under the 
circumstances which has formed my disposition. I have said to 
Pebbleson Nephew many a time, when they have said to me, ' Put 
a livelier face upon it, Joey ' — I have said to them, ' Gentlemen, it 
is all wery well for you that has been accustomed to take your wine 
into your systems by the conwivial channel of your throttles, to put 
a lively face upon it ; but,' I says, ' I have been accustomed to take 
my wine in at the pores of the skin, and, took that away, it acts 
different. It acts depressing. It's one thing, gentlemen,' I says to 
Pebbleson Nephew, ' to charge your glasses in a dining-room with 
a Hip Hurrah and a Jolly Companions Every One, and it's another 
thing to be charged yourself, through the pores, in a low dark cel- 
lar and a mouldy atmosphere. It makes all the difference betwixt 
bubbles and wapours,' I tells Pebbleson Nephew. And so it do. 
I've been a cellarman my life through, with my mind fully given to 
the business. What's the consequence % I'm as muddled a man as 
lives — you w^on't find a muddleder man than me — nor yet you 
won't find my equal in molloncolly. Sing of Filling the bumper 
fair, Every drop you sprinkle, O'er tlie brow of care. Smooths away 
a wrinkle % Yes. P'raps so. But try filling yourself through the 
pores, underground, when you don't want to it ! " 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 625 

" I am sorry to hear this, Joey. I had even thought that you 
might join a singing-class in the house." 

"Me, sir? No, no. Young Master Wilding, you won't catch 
Joey Ladle muddling the Armony. A pecking-machine, sir, is all 
that I am capable of proving myself, out of my cellars ; but that 
you're welcome to, if you think it's worth your while to keep such 
a thing on your premises." 

"I do, Joey." 

" Say no more, sir. The Business's word is my law. And you're 
a going to take Young Master George Vendale^artner into the old 
Business ? " 

" I am, Joey." 

" More changes, you see ! But don't change the name of the 
Firm again. Don't do it. Young Master Wilding. It was bad 
luck enough to make it Yourself and Co. Better by far have left 
it Pebbleson Nephew that good luck always stuck to. You should 
never change luck when it's good, sir." 

" At all events, I have no intention of changing the name of the 
House again, Joey." 

" Glad to hear it, and wish you good day. Young Master Wild- 
ing. But you had better by half," muttered Joey Ladle, inaudi- 
bly, as he closed the door and shook his head, "have let the name 
alone from the first. You had better by half have followed the 
luck instead of crossing it." 

ENTER THE HOUSEKEEPER. 

The wine-merchant sat in his dining-room next morning, to re- 
ceive the personal applicants for the vacant post in his establish- 
ment. It was an old-fashioned wainscoted room; the panels 
ornamented with festoons of flowers carved in wood; with an 
oaken floor, a well-worn Turkey carpet, and dark mahogany furni- 
ture, all of which had seen service and polish under Pebbleson 
Nephew. The great sideboard had assisted at many business-din- 
ners given by Pebbleson Nephew to their connection, on the princi- 
ple of throwing sprats overboard to catch whales ; and Pebbleson 
Nephew's comprehensive three-sided plate-warmer, made to fit the 
whole front of the large fire-place, kept watch beneath it over a 
sarcophagus-shaped cellaret that had in its time held many a dozen 
of Pebbleson Nephew's wine. But the little rubicund old bachelor 
with a pigtail, whose portrait was over the sideboard (and who 
could easily be identified as decidedly Pebbleson and decidedly not 
Nephew), had retired into another sarcophagus, and the plate- 
warmer had grown as cold as he. So, the golden and black griffins 



526 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

that supported the candelabra, with black balls in their mouths at 
the end of gilded chains, looked as if in their old age they had lost 
all heart for playing at ball, and were dolefully exhibiting their 
chains in the missionary line of inquiry, whether they had not earned 
emancipation by this time, and were not griffins and brothers ? 

Such a Columbus of a morning was the summer morning, that 
it discovered Cripple Corner. The light and warmth pierced in at 
the open windows, and irradiated the picture of a lady hanging 
over the chimney-piece, the only other decoration of the walls. 

"My mother at five-and- twenty," said Mr. Wilding to himself, 
as his eyes enthusiastically followed the light to the portrait's face, 
" I hang up here, in order that visitors may admire my mother in 
the bloom of her youth and beauty. My mother at fifty I hang in 
the seclusion of my own chamber, as a remembrance sacred to me. 
Oh ! It's you, Jarvis ! " 

These latter words he addressed to a clerk who had tapped at 
the door, and now looked in. 

" Yes, sir. I merely wish to mention that it's gone ten, sir, and 
that there are several females in the Counting-House." 

"Dear me !" said the wine-merchant, deepening in the pink of 
his complexion and whitening in the white, "are there several? 
So many as several 1 I had better begin before there are more. 
I'll see them one by one, Jarvis, in the order of their arrival." 

Hastily entrenching himself in his easy-chair at the table behind 
a great inkstand, having first placed a chair on the other side of 
the -table opposite his own seat, Mr. Wilding entered on his task 
with considerable trepidation. 

He ran the gauntlet that must be run on any such occasion. 
There were the usual species of profoundly unsympathetic women, 
and the usual species of much too sympathetic women. There were 
the buccaneering widows who came to seize him, and who griped um- 
brellas under their arms, as if each umbrella were he, and each 
griper had got him. There were towering maiden ladies who had 
seen better days, and M'ho came armed with clerical testimonials to 
their theology, as if he were Saint Peter with his keys. There 
were gentle maiden ladies who came to marry him. There were 
professional housekeepers, like non-commissioned officers, who put 
him through his domestic exercise, instead of submitting themselves 
to catechism. There were languid invalids to whom salary was not 
so much an object as the comforts of a private hospital. There were 
sensitive creatures who burst into tears on being addressed, and 
had to be restored with glasses of cold water. There were some 
respondents who came two together, a highly promising one and a 
wholly unpromising one : of whom the promising one answered all 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 527 

questions charmingly, until it would at last appear that she was 
not a candidate at all, but only the friend of the unpromising one, 
who had glowered in absolute silence and apparent injury. 

At last, when the good wine-merchant's simple heart was failing 
him, there entered an applicant quite different from all the rest. 
A woman, perhaps fifty, but looking younger, with a face remark- 
able for placid cheerfulness, and a manner no less remarkable for 
its quiet expression of equability of temper. Nothing in her dress 
could have been changed to her advantage. Nothing in the noise- 
less self-possession of her manner could have been changed to her 
advantage. Nothing could have been in better unison with both, 
than her voice when she answered the question : " What name 
shall I have the pleasure of noting down ? " with the words, " My 
name is Sarah Goldstraw. Mrs. Goldstraw. My husband has 
been dead many years, and we had no family." 

Half a dozen questions had scarcely extracted as much to the 
purpose from any one else. The voice dwelt so agreeably on Mr. 
Wilding's ear as he made his note, that he was rather long about 
it. When he looked up again, Mrs. Goldstraw's glance had natu- 
rally gone round the room, and now returned to him from the 
chimney-piece. Its expression was one of frank readiness to be 
questioned, and to answer straight. 

"You will excuse my asking you a few questions'?" said the 
modest wine-merchant. 

" Oh, surely, sir. Or I should have no business here." 

" Have you filled the station of housekeeper before 1 " 

" Only once. I have lived with the same widow lady for twelve 
years. Ever since I lost my husband. She was an invalid, and is 
lately dead : which is the occasion of my now wearing black." 

"I do not doubt that she has left you the best credentials?" 
said Mr. Wilding. 

"I hope I may say, the very best. I thought it would save 
trouble, sir, if I wrote down the name and address of her represent- 
atives, and brought it with me." Laying a card on the table. 

"You singularly remind me, Mrs. Goldstraw," said Wilding, 
taking the card beside him, "of a manner and tone of voice that 
I was once acquainted with. Not of an individual — I feel sure 
of that, though I cannot recall what it is I have in my mind ■ — but 
of a general bearing. I ought to add, it was a kind and pleasant 
one." 

She smiled, as she rejoined : "At least, I am very glad of that, 
sir." 

"Yes," said the wine-merchant, thoughtfully repeating his last 
phrase, with a momentary glance at his future housekeeper, "it 



528 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

was a kind and pleasant one. But that is the most I can make of 
it. Memory is sometimes like a half-forgotten dream. I don't 
know how it may appear to you, Mrs. Goldstraw, but so it appears 
to me." 

Probably it appeared to Mrs. Goldstraw in a similar light, for 
she quietly assented to the proposition. Mr. AVilding then offered 
to put himself at once in communication with the gentlemen named 
upon the card : a firm of proctors in Doctors' Commons. To this, 
Mrs. Goldstraw thankfully assented. Doctors' Commons not being 
far off, Mr. AVilding suggested the feasibility of Mrs. Goldstraw's 
looking in again, say in three hours' time. Mrs. Goldstraw readily 
undertook to do so. In fine, the result of Mr. Wilding's inquiries 
being eminently satisfactoiy, Mrs. Goldstraw was that afternoon 
engaged (on her own perfectly fair terms) to come to-morrow and 
set up her rest as housekeeper in Cripple Comer. 

THE HOUSEKEEPER SPEAKS. 

On the next day Mrs. Goldstraw arrived, to enter on her domestic 
duties. 

Having settled herself in her own room, without troubling the 
servants, and without wasting time, the new housekeeper announced 
herself as waiting to be favoured with any instructions which her 
master might wish to give her. The wine-merchant received Mrs. 
Goldstraw in the dining-room, in which he liad seen her on the 
previous day ; and, the usual preliminary civilities having passed 
on either side, the two sat down to take counsel together on the 
affairs of the house. 

"About the meals, sir?" said Mrs. Goldstraw. "Have I a 
large, or a small, number to provide for ? " 

" If I can carry out a certain old-fashioned plan of mine," replied 
Mr. Wilding, "you will have a large number to provide for. I am 
a lonely single man, Mrs. Goldstraw ; and I hope to live with all 
the persons in my employment as if they were members of my 
family. Until that time comes, you ^vill only have me, and the 
new partner whom I expect immediately, to provide for. What 
my partner's habits may be, I cannot yet say. But I may describe 
myself as a man of regular hours, with an invariable appetite that 
you may depend upon to an ounce." 

" About breakfast, sir ? " asked Mrs. Goldstraw. " Is there any- 
thing particular ?" 

She hesitated, and left the sentence unfinished. Her eyes turned 
slowly away from her master, and looked towards the chimney- 
piece. If she had been a less excellent and experienced house- 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 529 

keeper, Mr. Wilding might have fancied that her attention was 
beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview. 

" Eight o'clock is my breakfast-hour," he resumed. "It is one 
of my virtues to be never tired of broiled bacon, and it is one of 
my vices to be habitually suspicious of the freshness of eggs." 
Mrs. Goldstraw looked back at him, still a little divided between 
her master's chimney-piece and her master. "I take tea," Mr. 
Wilding went on; "and I am perhaps rather nervous and fidgety 
about drinking it, within a certain time after it is made. If my 
tea stands too long " 

He hesitated, on his side, and left the sentence unfinished. If 
he had not been engaged in discussing a subject of such paramount 
interest to himself as his breakfast, Mrs. Goldstraw might have 
fancied that his attention was beginning to wander at the very 
outset of the interview. 

" If your tea stands too long, sir ? " said the housekeeper, 

politely taking up her master's lost thread. 

"If my tea stands too long," repeated the wine-merchant, 
mechanically, his mind getting further and further away from his 
breakfast, and his eyes fixing themselves more and more inquiringly 

on his housekeeper's face. " If my tea Dear, dear me, Mrs. 

Goldstraw ! what is the manner and tone of voice that you remind 
me of ? It strikes me even more strongly to-day, than it did when 
I saw you yesterday. What can it be ? " 

"What can it be ? " repeated Mrs. Goldstraw. 

She said the words, evidently thinking while she spoke them 
of something else. The wine-merchant, still looking at her in- 
quiringly, observed that her eyes wandered towards the chimney- 
piece once more. They fixed on the portrait of his mother, which 
hung there, and looked at it with that slight contraction of the 
brow which accompanies a scarcely conscious effort of memory. 
Mr. Wilding remarked : 

"My late dear mother, when she was five-and-twenty." 

Mrs. Goldstraw thanked him with a movement of the head for 
being at the pains to explain the picture, and said, with a cleared 
brow, that it was the portrait of a very beautiful lady. 

Mr. Wilding, falling back into his former perplexity, tried once 
more to recover that lost recollection, associated so closely, and 
yet so undiscoverably, with his new housekeeper's voice and 
manner. 

" Excuse my asking you a question which has nothing to do with 
me or my breakfast," he said. "May I inquire if you have ever 
occupied any other situation than the situation of housekeeper ? " 

" Oh yes, sir. I began life as one of the nurses at the Foundling." 

2m 



530 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

" Why, that's it ! " cried the wine-merchant, pushing back his 
chair. " By Heaven ! Their manner is the manner you remind 
me of!" 

In an astonished look at him, Mrs. Goldstraw changed colour, 
checked herself, turned her eyes upon the ground, and sat still and 
silent. 

"What is the matter?" asked Mr. Wilding. 

" Do I understand that you were in the Foundling, sir ? " 

" Certainly. I am not ashamed to own it." 

" Under the name you now bear ? " 

"Under the name of Walter Wilding." 

"And the lady ?" Mrs. Goldstraw stopped short, with a 

look at the portrait which was now unmistakably a look of alarm. 

" You mean my mother," interrupted Mr. Wilding. 

"Your — mother," repeated the housekeeper, a little constrain- 
edly, "removed you from the Foundling? At what age, sir? " 

" At between eleven and twelve years old. It's quite a roman- 
tic adventure, Mrs. Goldstraw." 

He told the story of the lady having spoken to him, while he 
sat at dinner with the other boys in the Foundling, and of all 
that had followed, in his innocently communicative way. " My 
poor mother could never have discovered me," he added, "if she 
had not met with one of the matrons who pitied her. The matron 
consented to touch the boy whose name was 'Walter Wilding' 
as she went round the dinner-tables — and so my mother discovered 
me again, after having parted from me as an infant at the Found- 
ling doors." 

At those words Mrs. Goldstraw 's hand, resting on the table, 
dropped helplessly into her lap. She sat, looking at her new 
master, with a face that had turned deadly pale, and with eyes that 
expressed an unutterable, dismay. 

"What does this mean?" asked the wine-merchant. "Stop!" 
he cried. " Is their something else in the past time which I ought 
to associate with you ? I remember, my mother telling me of another 
person at the Foundling, to whose kindness she owed a debt of 
gratitude. When she first parted with me, as an infant, one of 
the nurses informed her of the name that had been given to me in 
the institution. You were that nurse ? " 

" God forgive me, sir — I was that nurse ! " 

" God forgive you ? " 

" We had better get back, sir (if I may make so bold as to say 
so), to my duties in the house," said Mrs. Goldstraw. "Your 
breakfast-hour is eight. Do you lunch, or dine, in the middle of 
the day?" 



NO THOROUGHFAKE. 531 

The excessive pinkness which Mr. Bintrey had noticed in his 
client's face began to appear there once more. Mr. Wilding put 
liis hand to his head, and mastered some momentary confusion 
in that quarter, before he spoke again. 

"Mrs. Goldstraw," he said, "you are concealing something from 
me!" 

The housekeeper obstinately repeated, "Please to favour me, 
sir, by saying whether you lunch, or dine, in the middle of the 
day?" 

" I don't know what I do in the middle of the day. I can't 
enter into my household affairs, Mrs. Goldstraw, till I know why 
you regret an act of kindness to my mother, which she always 
spoke of gratefully to the end of her life. You are not doing me 
a service by your silence. You are agitating me, you are alarm- 
ing me, you are bringing on the singing in my head." 

His hand went up to his head again, and the pink in his face 
deepened by a shade or two. 

"It's hard, sir, on just entering your service," said the house- 
keeper, "to say what may cost me the loss of your good will. 
Please to remember, end how it may, that I only speak because 
you have insisted on my speaking, and because I see that I am 
alarming you by my silence. When I told the poor lady, whose 
portrait you have got there, the name by which her infant was 
christened in the Foundling, I allowed myself to forget my duty, 
and dreadful consequences, I am afraid, have followed from it. I'll 
tell you the truth, as plainly as I can. A few months from the 
time when I had informed the lady of her baby's name, there came 
to our institution in the country another lady (a stranger), whose 
object was to adopt one of our children. She brought the needful 
permission with her, and after looking at a great many of the chil- 
dren, without being able to make up her mind, she took a sudden 
fancy to one of the babies — a boy — under my care. Try, pray 
try, to compose yourself, sir ! It's no use disguising it any longer. 
The child the stranger took away was the child of that lady whose 
portrait hangs there ! " 

Mr. Wilding started to his feet. " Impossible ! " he cried out, 
vehemently. "What are you talking about? What absurd story 
are you telling me now ? There's her portrait ! Haven't I told 
you so already ? The portrait of my mother ! " 

"When that unhappy lady removed you from the Foundling, 
in after years," said Mrs. Goldstraw, gently, "she was the victim, 
and you were the victim, sir, of a dreadful mistake." 

He dropped back into his chair. " The room goes round with 
me," he said. "My head! my head !" The housekeeper rose in 



532 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

alarm, and opened the windows. Before she could get to the door 
to call for help, a sudden burst of tears relieved the oppression 
which had at first almost appeared to threaten his life. He 
signed entreatingly to Mrs. Goldstraw not to leave him. She 
waited until the paroxysm of weeping had worn itself out. He 
raised his liead as he recovered himself, and looked at her with the 
angry unreasoning suspicion of a weak man. 

"Mistake?" he said, wildly repeating her last word. "How 
do I know you are not mistaken yourself?" 

" There is no hope that I am mistaken, sir. I will tell you 
why, when you are better fit to hear it." 

" Now ! now ! " 

The tone in which he spoke warned Mrs. Goldstraw that it 
would be cruel kindness to let him comfort himself a moment 
longer with the vain hope that she might be wrong. A few words 
more would end it — and those few words she determined to 



"I have told you," she said, " that the child of the lady whose 
portrait hangs there, was adopted in its infancy, and taken away 
by a stranger. I am as certain of what I say as that I am now 
sitting here, obliged to distress you, sir, sorely against my will. 
Please to carry your mind on, now, to about three months after 
that time. I was then at the Foundling, in London, waiting to 
take some children to our institution in the country. There was 
a question that day about naming an infant — a boy — who had 
just been received. We generally named them out of the Direc- 
tory. On this occasion, one of the gentlemen who managed the 
Hospital happened to be looking over the Register. He noticed 
that the name of the baby who had been adopted (' Walter Wild- 
ing ') was scratched out — for the reason, of course, that the child 
had been removed for good from our care. 'Here's a name to 
let,' he said. 'Give it to the new foundling who has been re- 
ceived to-day.' The name was given, and the child was christened. 
You, sir, were that child." 

The wine-merchant's head dropped on his breast. " I was that 
child ! " he said to himself, trying helplessly to fix the idea in his 
mind. " I was that child ! " 

" Not very long after you had been received into the Institution, 
sir," pursued Mrs. Goldstraw, "I left my situation there, to be mar- 
ried. If you will remember that, and iif you can give your mind to 
it, you will see for yourself how the mistake happened. Between 
eleven and twelve years passed before the lady, whom you have be- 
lieved to be your mother, returned to the Foundling, to find her son, 
and to remove him to her own home. The lady only knew that her 



NO THOROUGHFARE. • 533 

infant had been called ' Walter Wilding.' The matron who took 
pity on her, could but point out the only ' Walter Wilding ' known 
in the Institution. I, who might have set the matter right, was 
far away from the Foundling and all that belonged to it. There 
was nothing — there was really nothing that could prevent this 
terrible mistake from taking place. I feel for you — I do indeed, 
sir ! You must think — and with reason — that it was in an evil 
hour that I came here (innocently enough, I'm sure), to apply for 
your housekeeper's place. I feel as if I was to blame — I feel as if 
I ought to have had more self-command. If J had only been able 
to keep my face from showing yon, what that portrait and what 
your own words put into my mind — you need never, to your dying 
day, have known what you know now." 

Mr. Wilding looked up suddenly. The inbred honesty of the 
man rose in protest against the housekeeper's last words. His mind 
seemed to steady itself, for the moment, under the shock that had 
fallen on it. 

" Do you mean to say that you would have concealed this from 
me if you could 1 " he exclaimed. 

" I hope I should always tell the truth, sir, if I was asked," said 
Mrs. Goldstraw. " And I know it is better for me that I should 
not have a secret of this sort weighing on my mind. But is it 
better for ^ou ? What use can it serve now ? " 



What use ? Why, good Lord ! if your story is true 



"Should I have told it, sir, as I am now situated, if it had not 
been true ? " 

" I beg your pardon," said the wine-merchant. " You must make 
allowance for me. This dreadful discovery is something I can't 
realise even yet. We loved each other so dearly — I felt so fondly 
that I was her son. She died, Mrs. Goldstraw, in my arms — she 
died blessing me as only a mother could have blessed me. And now, 
after all these years, to be told she was not my mother ! me, 
me ! I don't know what I am saying ! " he cried, as the impulse of 
self-control under which he had spoken a moment since, flickered, 
and died out. " It was not this dreadful grief — it was something 
else that I had it in my mind to speak of. Yes, yes. You sur- 
prised me — you wounded me just now. You talked as if you would 
have hidden this from me, if you could. Don't talk in that way 
again. It would have been a crime to have hidden it. You mean 
well, I know. I don't want to distress you — you are a kind-hearted 
woman. But you don't remember what my position is. She left 
me all that I possess, in the firm persuasion that I was her son. I 
am not her son. I have taken the place, I have innocently got the 
inheritance of another man. He must be found ! How do I know 



634 ' NO THOROUGHFARE. 

he is not at this moment in misery, without bread to eat ? He must 
be found ! My only hope of bearing up against the shock that has 
fallen on me, is the hope of doing something which she would have 
approved. You must know more, Mrs. Goldstraw, than you have 
told me yet. Who was the stranger who adopted the child ? You 
must have heard the lady's name ? " 

"I never heard it, sir. I have never seen her, or heard of her, 
since." 

"Did she say nothing when she took the child away? Search 
your memory. She must have said something." 

"Only one thing, sir, that I can remember. It was a miserably 
bad season, that year ; and many of the children were suffering from 
it. When she took the baby away, the lady said to me, laugh- 
ing, 'Don't be alarmed about his health. He will be brought 
up in a better climate than this — I am going to take him to 
Switzerland.' " 

" To Switzerland ? What part of Switzeidand ? " 

" She didn't say, sir." 

" Only that faint clue ! " said Mr. Wilding. " And a quarter of 
a century has passed since the child was taken away ! What am I 
to do?" 

"I hope you won't take offence at my freedom, sir," said Mrs. 
Goldstraw ; " but why should you distress yourself about what is 
to be done 1 He may not be alive now, for anything you know. 
And, if he is alive, it's not likely he can be in any distress. The 
lady who adopted him was a bred and born lady — it was easy to 
see that. And she must have satisfied them at the Foundling that 
she could provide for the child, or they would never have let her 
take him away. If I was in your place, sir — please to excuse my 
saying so — I should comfort myself with remembering that I had 
loved that poor lady whose portrait you have got there — truly 
loved her as my mother, and that she had truly loved me as her 
son. All she gave to you, she gave for the sake of that love. It 
never altered while she lived ; and it won't alter, I'm sure, as long 
as you live. How can you have a better right, sir, to keep what 
you have got than that 1 " 

Mr. Wilding's immovable honesty saw the fallacy in his house- 
keeper's point of view at a glance. 

"You don't understand me," he said. "It's because I loved her 
that I feel it a duty — a sacred duty — to do justice to her son. 
If he is a living man, I must find him : for my own sake, as well 
as for his. I shall break down under this dreadful trial, unless I 
employ myself — actively, instantly employ myself — in doing what 
my conscience tells me ought to be done. I must speak to my 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 535 

lawyer; I must set my lawyer at work before I sleep to-night." 
He approached a tube in the wall of the room, and called down 
through it to the office below. " Leave me for a little, Mrs. Gold- 
straw," he resumed; "I shall be more composed, I shall be better 
able to speak to you later in the day. We shall get on well — I 
hope we shall get on well together — in spite of what has happened. 
It isn't your fault ; I know it isn't your fault. There ! there ! shake 
hands ; and — and do the best you can in the house — I can't talk 
about it now." 

The door opened as Mrs. Goldstraw advanced towards it ; and 
Mr. Jarvis appeared. 

" Send for Mr. Bintrey," said the wine-merchant. " Say I want 
to see him directly." 

The clerk unconsciously suspended the execution of the order, 
by announcing "Mr. Vendale," and showing in the new partner 
in the firm of Wilding and Co. 

"Pray excuse me for one moment, George Vendale," said Wild- 
ing. "I have a word to say to Jarvis. Send for Mr. Bintrey," 
he repeated — " send at once." 

Mr. Jarvis laid a letter on the table before he left the room. 

"From our correspondents at Neuchatel, I think, sir. The 
letter has got the Swiss postmark." 

NEW CHARACTERS ON THE SCENE. 

The words, "The Swiss Postmark," following so soon upon the 
housekeeper's reference to Switzerland, wrought Mr. Wilding's agi- 
tation to such a remarkable height, that his new partner could not 
decently make a pretence of letting it pass unnoticed. 

" Wilding," he asked hurriedly, and yet stopping short and 
glancing around as if for some visible cause of his state of mind : 
" what is the matter ? " 

"My good George Vendale," returned the wine-merchant, giving 
his hand with an appealing look, rather as if he wanted help to get 
over some obstacle, than as if he gave it in welcome or salutation : 
" my good George Vendale, so much is the matter, that I shall never 
be myself again. It is impossible that I can ever be myself again. 
For, in fact, I am not myself." 

The new partner, a brown-cheeked handsome fellow, of about 
his own age, with a quick determined eye and an impulsive man- 
ner, retorted with natural astonishment: "Not yourself?" 

"Not what I supposed myself to be," said Wilding. 

" What, in the name of wonder, did you suppose yourself to be 
that you are not?" was the rejoinder, delivered with a cheerful 



536 NO THOROUGHTARE. 

frankness, inviting confidence from a more reticent man. " I may 
ask without impertinence, now that w^e are partners." 

" There again ! " cried Wilding, leaning back in his chair, \\it\i 
a lost look at the other. " Partners ! I had no right to come 
into this business. It was never meant for me. My mother 
never meant it should be mine. I mean, his mother meant it 
should be his — if I mean anything — or if I am anybody." 

"Come, come," urged his partner, after a moment's pause, and 
taking possession of him with that calm confidence which inspires 
a strong nature when it honestly desires to aid a weak one. 
"Whatever has gone wrong, has gone wrong through no fault of 
yours, I am very sure. I was not in this counting-house with you 
under the old regime, for three years, to doubt you. Wilding. We 
were not younger men than we are, together, for that. Let me 
begin our partnership by being a serviceable partner, and setting 
right whatever is wrong. Has that letter anything to do with it ? " 

"Hah!" said Wilding, with his hand to his temple. "There 
again ! My head ! I was forgetting the coincidence. The Swiss 
postmark." 

" At a second glance I see that the letter is unopened, so it is 
not very likely to have much to do with the matter," said Yendale, 
with comforting composure. "Is it for you, or for us 1 " 

"For us," said Wilding. 

" Suppose I open it and read it aloud, to get it out of our way ? " 

" Thank you, thank you." 

" The letter is only from our champagne-making friends, the 
House at Neuchatel. ' Dear Sir. We are in receipt of yours of 
the 28th ult., informing us that you have taken your Mr. Yendale 
into partnership, whereon we beg you to receive the assurance of 
our felicitations. Permit us to embrace the occasion of specially 
commending to you, M. Jules Obenreizer.' Impossible ! " 

Wilding lookiug up in quick apprehension, and cried, "Eh?" 

"Impossible sort of name," returned his partner, slightly 
— "Obenreizer. ' — Of specially commending to you M. Jules 
Obenreizer, of Soho-square, Loudon (north side), henceforth fully 
accredited as our agent, and who has already had the honour of 
making the acquaintance of your Mr. Vendale, in his (said M. 
Obenreizer's) native country, Switzerland.' To be sure : pooh pooh, 
what have I been thinking of ! I remember now ; ' when travel- 
ling with his niece.' " 

"With his ?" Vendale had so slurred the last word, that 

Wilding had not heard it. 

"When travelling with his Niece. Obenreizer's Niece," said 
Vendale. in a somewhat superfluously lucid manner. " Niece of 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 537 

Obenreizer. (I met them in my first Swiss tour, travelled a little 
with them, and lost them for two years ; met them again, my Swiss 
tour before last, and have lost them ever since.) Obenreizer. 
Niece of Obenreizer. To be sure ! Possible sort of name, after 
all ! ' M. Obenreizer is in possession of our absolute confidence, 
and we do not doubt you will esteem his merits.' Duly signed by 
the House, ' Defresnier et C^^' Very well. I undertake to see 
M. Obenreizer presently, and clear him out of the way. That 
clears the Swiss postmark out of the way. So now, my dear Wild- 
ing, tell me what I can clear out of your way,' and I'll find a way 
to clear it." 

More than ready and grateful to be thus taken charge of, the 
honest wine-merchant wrung his partner's hand, and, beginning his 
tale by pathetically declaring himself an Impostor, told it. 

"It was on this matter, no doubt, that you were sending for 
Bintrey, when I came in % " said his partner, after reflecting. 

" It was." 

"He has experience and a shrewd head; I shall be anxious to 
know his opinion. It is bold and hazardous in me to give you 
mine before I know his, but I am not good at holding back. 
Plainly, then, I do not see these circumstances as you see them. 
I do not see your position as you see it. As to your being an Im- 
postor, my dear Wilding, that is simply absurd, because no man can 
be that without being a consenting party to an imposition. Clearly 
you never were so. As to your enrichment by the lady who believed 
you to be her son, and whom you were forced to believe, on her 
own showing, to be your mother, consider whether that did not 
arise out of the personal relations between you. You gradually 
became much attached to her ; she gradually became much attached 
to you. It was on you, personally you, as I see the case, that she 
conferred these worldly advantages ; it was from her, personally her, 
that you took them." 

"She supposed me," objected Wilding, shaking his head, "to 
have a natural claim upon her, which I had not." 

"I must admit that," replied his partner, "to be true. But if 
she had made the discovery that you have made, six months before 
she died, do you think it would have cancelled the years you were 
together, and the tenderness that each of you had conceived for 
the other, each on increasing knowledge of the other ? " 

"What I think," said Wilding, simply but stoutly holding to 
the bare fact, " can no more change the truth than it can bring 
down the sky. The truth is that I stand possessed of what was 
meant for another man." 

" He may be dead," said Vendale. 



538 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

"He may be alive," said Wilding. "And if lie is alive, have 
I not — innocently, I grant you innocently — robbed him of enough ? 
Have I not robbed him of all the happy time that I enjoyed in his 
stead 1 Have I not robbed him of the exquisite delight that filled 
my soul when that dear lady," stretching his hand towards the 
picture, "told me she was my mother? Have I not robbed him 
of all the care she lavished on me? Have I not even robbed him 
of all the devotion and duty that I so proudly gave to her ? There- 
fore it is that I ask myself, George Vendale, and I ask you, where 
is he ? What has become of him ? " 

"WhocanteU!" 

" I must try to find out who can tell. I must institute inquiries. 
I must never desist from prosecuting inquiries. I will live upon 
the interest of my share — I ought to say liis share — in this busi- 
ness, and will lay up the rest for him. When I find him, I may 
perhaps throw myself upon his generosity ; but I will yield up all 
to him. I will, I swear. As I loved and honoured her," said 
Wilding, reverently kissing his hand towards the picture, and then 
covering his eyes with it. " As I loved and honoured her, and 
have a world of reasons to be grateful to her ! " And so broke 
down agciin. 

His partner rose from the chair he had occupied, and stood 
beside him with a hand softly laid upon his shoulder. " Walter, 
I knew you before to-day to be an upright man, with a pure con- 
science and a fine heart. It is very fortunate for me that I have 
the privilege to travel on in life so near to so trustworthy a man. 
I am thankful for it. Use me as your right hand, and rely upon 
me to the death. Don't think the worse of me if I protest to you 
that my uppermost feeling at present is a confused, you may call 
it an unreasonable, one. I feel far more pity for the lady 
and for you, because you did not stand in your supposed 
relations, than I can feel for the unknown man (if he ever became 
a man), because he was unconsciously displaced. You have done 
well in sending for Mr. Bintrey. What I think will be a part of 
his advice, I know is the whole of mine. Do not move a step in 
this serious matter precipitately. The secret must be kept among 
us with great strictness, for to part with it lightly would be to 
invite fraudulent claims, to encourage a host of knaves, to let loose 
a flood of perjury and plotting. I have no more to say now, 
Walter, than to remind you that you sold me a share in your busi- 
ness, expressly to save yourself from more work than your present 
health is fit for, and that I bought it expressly to do work, and 
mean to do it." 

With these words, and a parting grip of his partner's shoulder 



NO THOROUGHFAliE. 539 

that gave them the best emphasis they could have had, George 
Vendale betook himself presently to the counting-house, and pres- 
ently afterwards to the address of M. Jules Obenreizer. 

As he turned into Soho-square, and directed his steps towards 
its north side, a deepened colour shot across his sun-bro\vned face, 
which Wilding, if he had been a better observer, or had been less 
occupied with his own trouble, might have noticed when his part- 
ner read aloud a certain passage in their Swiss correspondent's 
letter, which he had not read so distinctly as the rest. 

A curious colony of mountaineers has long been enclosed within 
that small flat London district of Soho. Swiss watch-makers, 
Swiss silver-chasers, Swiss jewellers, Swiss importers of Swiss 
musical boxes and Swiss toys of various kinds, draw close together 
there. Swiss professors of music, painting, and languages ; Swiss 
artificers in steady work ; Swiss couriers, and other Swiss servants 
chronically out of place; industrious Swiss laundresses and clear- 
starchers ; mysteriously existing Swiss of both sexes ; Swiss, credit- 
able and Swiss discreditable ; Swiss to be trusted by all means, and 
Swiss to be trusted by no means ; these diverse Swiss particles are 
attracted to a centre in the district of Soho. Shabby Swiss eating- 
houses, coffee-houses, and lodging-houses, Swiss drinks and dishes, 
Swiss service for Sundays, and Swiss schools for week-days, are all 
to be found there. Even the native-born English taverns drive a 
sort of broken-English trade ; announcing in their windows Swiss 
whets and drams, and sheltering in tlieir bars Swiss skirmishes of 
love and animosity on most nights in the year. 

When the new partner in Wilding and Co, rang the bell of a 
door bearing the blunt inscription Obenreizer on a brass plate — 
the inner door of a substantial house, whose ground story was 
devoted to the sale of Swiss clocks — he passed at once into domes- 
tic Switzerland. A white-tiled stove for winter-time filled the fire- 
place of the room into which he was shown, the room's bare floor 
was laid together in a neat pattern of several ordinary woods, the 
room had a prevalent air of surface bareness and much scrubbing ; 
and the little square of flowery carpet by the sofa, and the velvet 
chimney-board with its capacious clock and vases of artificial flowers, 
contended with that tone, as if, in bringing out the whole effect, a 
Parisian had adapted a dairy to domestic purposes. 

Mimic water was dropping off a mill-wheel under the clock. 
The visitor had not stood before it, following it with his eyes, a 
minute, when M. Obenreizer, at his elbow, startled him by saying, 
in very good English, very slightly clipped : " How do you do 1 So 
glad ! " 

" I beg your pardon. I didn't hear you come in." 



640 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

"Not at all! Sit, please." 

Releasing his visitor's two arms, which he had lightly pinioned 
at the elbows by way of embrace, M. Obenreizer also sat, remarking, 
with a smile : " You are well 1 So glad ! " and touching his elbows 
again. 

"I don't know," said Vendale, after exchange of salutations, 
"whether you may yet have heard of me from your house at 
Neuchatel?" 

"Ah, yes!" 

" In connection with Wilding and Co. ? 

"Ah, surely!" 

" Is it not odd that I should come to you, in London here, as one 
of the Firm of AVilding and Co., to pay the Firm's respects ? " 

" Not at all ! What did I always observe when we were on the 
mountains ? We call them vast : but the world is so little. So 
little is the world, that one cannot keep away from persons. There 
are so few persons in the world, that they continually cross and re- 
cross. So very little is the w^orld, that one cannot get rid of a 
person. Not," touching his elbows again, with an ingratiatory 
smile, " that one would desire to get rid of you." 

" I hope not, M. Obenreizer." 

"Please call me, in your country, Mr. I call myself so, for I 
love your countiy. If I could be English ! But I am born. And 
you 1 Though descended from so fine a family, you have had the 
condescension to come into trade 1 Stop though. Wines ? Is it 
trade in England or profession ? Not fine art 1 " 

"Mr. Obenreizer," returned Vendale, somewhat out of counte- 
nance, " I was but a silly young fellow, just of age, when I first had 
the pleasure of travelling with you, and when you and I and 
Mademoiselle your niece — who is well ? " 

"Thank you. Who is well." 

" — Shared some slight glacier dangers together. If, with a 
boy's vanity, I rather vaunted my family, I hope I did so as a kind 
of introduction of myself. It was very weak, and in very bad 
taste ; but perhaps you know our English proverb, ' Live and learn.' " 

"You make too much of it," returned the Swiss. "And what 
the devil ! After all, yours was a fine family." 

George Yendale's laugh betrayed a little vexation as he rejoined : 
" Well ! I was strongly attached to my parents, and when we first 
travelled together, Mr. Obenreizer, I was in the first flush of com- 
ing into what my father and mother left me. So I hope it may 
have been, after all, more youthful openness of speech and heart 
than boastfulness." 

" All openness of speech and heart ! No boastfulness ! " cried 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 541 

Obenreizer. "You tax yourself too heavily. You tax yourself, 
my faith ! as if you was your Government taxing you ! Besides, it 
commenced with me. I remember, that evening in the boat upon 
the lake, floating among the reflections of the mountains and valleys, 
the crags and pine woods, which were my earliest remembrance, I 
drew a word-picture of my sordid childhood. Of our poor hut, by 
the waterfall which my mother showed to travellers ; of the cow- 
shed where I slept with the cow ; of my idiot half-brother always 
sitting at the door, or limping down the Pass to beg ; of my half- 
sister always spinning, and resting her enormotrs goitre on a great 
stone ; of my being a famished naked little wretch of two or three 
years, when they were men and women with hard hands to beat me, 
I, the only child of my father's second marriage — if it even was a 
marriage. What more natural than for you to compare notes with 
me, and say, ' We are as one by age ; at that same time I sat upon 
my mother's lap in my father's carriage, rolling through the rich 
English streets, all luxury surrounding me, all squalid poverty kept 
far from me. Such is my earliest remembrance as opposed to 
yours ! ' " 

Mr. Obenreizer was a black-haired young man of a dark com- 
plexion, through whose swarthy skin no red glow ever shone. When 
colour would have come into another cheek, a hardly discernible beat 
would come into his, as if the machinery for bringing up the ardent 
blood were there, but the machinery were dry. He was robustly 
made, well proportioned, and had handsome features. Many would 
have perceived that some surface change in him would have set them 
more at their ease with him, without being able to define what 
change. If his lips could have been made much thicker, and his 
neck much thinner, they would have found their want supplied. 

But the great Obenreizer peculiarity was, that a certain nameless 
film would come over his eyes — apparently by the action of his own 
will — which would impenetrably veil, not only from those tellers 
of tales, but from his face at large, every expression save one of at- 
tention. It by no means followed that his attention should be 
wholly given to the person with whom he spoke, or even wholly be- 
stowed on present sounds and objects. Rather, it was a compre- 
hensive watchfulness of everything he had in his own mind, and 
everything that he knew to be, or suspected to be, in the minds of 
other men. 

At this stage of the conversation, Mr. Obenreizer's film came over 
him. 

" The object of my present visit," said Vendale, " is, I need hardly 
say, to assure you of the friendliness of Wilding and Co., and of the 
goodness of your credit with us, and of our desire to be of service to 



542 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

you. We hope shortly to offer you our hospitality. Things are 
not quite in train with us yet, for my partner, Mr. Wilding, is reor- 
ganising the domestic part of our establishment, and is interrupted 
by some private affairs. You don't know Mr. Wilding, I believe ? " 

Mr. Obenreizer did not. 

"You must come together soon. He will be glad to have made 
your acquaintance, and I think I may predict that you will be glad 
to have made his. You have not been long established in London, 
I suppose, Mr. Obenreizer?" 

"It is only now that I have undertaken this agency." 

" Mademoiselle your niece — is — not married *? " 

"Not married." 

George Vendale glanced about him, as if for any tokens of her. 

" She has been in London ? " 

" She is in London." 

" When, and where, might I have the honour of recalling myself 
to her remembrance ? " 

Mr. Obenreizer, discarding his film and touching his visitor's elbows 
as before, said lightly : "Come up-stairs." 

Fluttered enough by the suddenness with which the interview he 
had sought was coming upon him after all, George Vendale followed 
up-stairs. In a room over the chamber he had just quitted — a 
room also Swiss-appointed — a young lady sat near one of three 
windows, working at an embroidery-frame ; and an older lady sat 
with her face turned close to another white-tiled stove (though it 
was summer, and the stove was not lighted), cleaning gloves. The 
young lady wore an unusual quantity of fair bright hair, very pret- 
tily braided about a rather rounder white forehead than the aver- 
age English type, and so her face might have been a shade — or 
say a light — rounder than the average English face, and her figure 
slightly rounder than the figure of the average English girl at nine- 
teen. A remarkable indication of freedom and grace of limb, in her 
quiet attitude, and a wonderful purity and freshness of colour in her 
dimpled face and bright grey eyes, seemed fraught with mountain 
air. Switzerland, too, though the general fashion of her dress was 
English, peeped out of the fanciful bodice she wore, and lurked in 
the curious clocked red stocking, and in its little silver-buckled shoe. 
As to the elder lady, sitting with her feet apart upon the lower 
brass ledge of the stove, supporting a lapful of gloves while she 
cleaned one stretched on her left hand, she was a true Swiss im- 
personation of another kind ; from the breadth of her cushion-like 
back, and the ponderosity of her respectable legs (if the word be 
admissible), to the black velvet band tied tightly round her throat 
for the repression of a rising tendency to goitre ; or, higher still, to 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 543 

her great copper-coloured gold earrings; or, higher still, to her 
head-dress of black gauze stretched on wire. 

" Miss Marguerite," said Obenreizer to the young lady, " do you 
recollect this gentleman 1 " 

"I think," she answered, rising from her seat, surprised and a 
little confused : "it is Mr. Vendale?" 

"I think it is," said Obenreizer, dryly. "Permit me, Mr. 
Vendale. Madame Dor." 

The elder lady by the stove, with the glove stretched on her left 
hand, like a glover's sign, half got up, half looked over her broad 
shoulder, and wholly plumped down again and rubbed away. 

"Madame Dor," said Obenreizer, smiling, "is so kind as to keep 
me free from stain or tear. Madame Dor humours my weakness 
for being always neat, and devotes her time to removing every one 
of my specks and spots." 

Madame Dor, with the stretched glove in the air, and her eyes 
closely scrutinising its palm, discovered a tough spot in Mr. Oben- 
reizer at that moment, and rubbed hard at him. George Vendale 
took his seat by the embroidery-frame (having first taken the fair 
right hand that his entrance had checked), and glanced at the gold 
cross that dipped into the bodice, with something of the devotion 
of a pilgrim who had reached his shrine at last. Obenreizer stood 
in the middle of the room with his thumbs in his waistcoat-pockets, 
and became filmy. 

" He was saying down-stairs. Miss Obenreizer," observed Vendale, 
" that the world is so small a place, that people cannot escape one 
another. I have found it much too large for me since I saw you 
last." 

"Have you travelled so far, then?" she inquired. 

" Not so far, for I have only gone back to Switzerland each year; 
but I could have wished — and indeed I have wished very often 
— that the little world did not afibrd such opportunities for long 
escapes as it does. If it had been less, I might have found my 
fellow-travellers sooner, you know." 

The pretty Marguerite coloured, and very slightly glanced in the 
direction of Madame Dor. 

"You find us at length, Mr. Vendale. Perhaps you may lose us 
again." 

" I trust not. The curious coincidence that has enabled me to 
find you, encourages me to hope not." 

" What is that coincidence, sir, if you please 1 " A dainty little 
native touch in this turn of speech, and in its tone, made it perfectly 
captivating, thought George Vendale, when again he noticed an 
instantaneous glance towards Madame Dor. A caution seemed to 



544 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

be conveyed in it, rapid flash though it was ; so he quietly took 
heed of Madame Dor from that time forth. 

"It is that I happen to have become a partner in a house of 
business in London, to which Mr. Obenreizer happens this very day 
to be expressly recommended : and that, too, by another house of 
business in Switzerland, in which (as it turns out) we both have a 
commercial interest. He has not told you ? " 

" Ah ! " cried Obenreizer, striking in, filmless. " No. I had 
not told Miss Marguerite. The world is so small and so monot- 
onous that a surprise is worth having in such a little jog-trot place. 
It is as he tells you. Miss Marguerite. He, of so fine a family, and 
so proudly bred, has condescended to trade. To trade ! Like us 
poor peasants who have risen from ditches ! " ■ 

A cloud crept over the fair brow, and she cast down her eyes. « 

" Why, it is good for trade ! " pursued Obenreizer, enthusiastically. 
" It ennobles trade ! It is the misfortune of trade, it is its vulgarity, 
that any low people — for example, we poor peasants — may take 
to <i%, and climb by it. See you, my dear Vendale ! " He spoke 
with great energy. "The father oif Miss Marguerite, my eldest 
half-brother, more than two times your age or mine, if living now, 
Avandered without shoes, almost without rags, from that wretched 
Pass — wandered — wandered — got to be fed with the mules and 
dogs at an Inn in the main valley far away — got to be Boy there — 
got to be Ostler — got to be AVaiter — got to be Cook — got to be 
Landlord. As Landlord, he took me (could he take the idiot beggar 
his brother, or the spinning monstrosity his sister ?) to put as pupil to 
the famous watchmaker, his neighbour and friend. His wife dies when 
Miss Marguerite is born. What is his will, and what are his words, 
to me, when he dies, she being between girl and woman ? ' All for 
Marguerite, except so much by the year for you. You are young, 
but I make her your ward, for you were of the obscurest and the 
poorest peasantry, and so was I, and so was her mother ; we w^ere 
abject peasants all, and you will remember it.' The thing is equally 
true of most of my countrymen, now in trade in this your London 
quarter of Soho. Peasants once ; low-born drudging Swiss peasants. 
Then how good and great for trade : " here, from having been warm, 
he became playfully jubilant, and touched the young wine-merchant's 
elbows again with his light embrace: "to be exalted by gentle- 
men ! " 

" I do not think so," said Marguerite, with a flushed cheek, and 
a look away from the visitor, that was almost defiant. " I think it 
is as much exalted by us peasants." 

"Fie, fie, Miss Marguerite," said Obenreizer. "You speak in 
proud England." 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 645 

"I speak in proud earnest," she answered, quietly resuming her 
work, " and I am not English, but a Swiss peasant's daughter." 

There was a dismissal of the subject in her words, which Ven- 
dale could not contend against. He only said in an earnest manner, 
" I most heartily agree with you. Miss Obenreizer, and I have al- 
ready said so, as Mr. Obenreizer will bear witness," which he by no 
means did, "in this house." 

Now, Vendale's eyes were quick eyes, and sharply watching 
Madame Dor by times, noted soinething in the broad back view of 
that lady. There was considerable pantomimic expression in her 
glove-cleaning. It had been very softly done when he spoke with 
Marguerite, or it had altogether stopped, like the action of a listener. 
When Obenreizer's peasant-speech came to an end, she rubbed most 
vigorously, as if applauding it. And once or twice, as the glove 
(which she always held before her, a little about her face) turned 
in the air, or as this finger went down, or that went up, he even 
fancied that it made some telegraphic communication to Obenreizer : 
whose back was certainly never turned upon it, though he did not 
seem at all to heed it. 

Vendale observed, too, that in Marguerite's dismissal of the sub- 
ject twice forced upon him to his misrepresentation, there was an 
indignant treatment of her guardian which she tried to check : as 
though she would have flamed out against him, but for the influence 
of fear. He also observed — though this was not much — that he 
never advanced within the distance of her at which he first placed 
himself : as though there were limits fixed between them. Neither 
had he ever spoken of her without the prefix " Miss," though when- 
ever he uttered it, it was with the faintest trace of an air of mock- 
ery. And now it occurred to Vendale for the first time that something 
curious in the man which he had never before been able to define, 
was definable as a certain subtle essence of mockery that eluded 
touch or analysis. He felt convinced that Marguerite was in some 
sort a prisoner as to her free will — though she held her own 
against those two combined, by the force of her character, which 
was nevertheless inadequate to her release. To feel convinced of 
this, was not to feel less disposed to love her than he had always 
been. In a word, he was desperately in love w^ith her, and thoroughly 
determined to pursue the opportunity which had opened at last. 

For the present, he merely touched upon the pleasure that Wild- 
ing and Co. would soon have in entreating Miss Obenreizer to hon- 
our their establishment with her presence — a curious old place, 
though a bachelor house withal — and so did not protract his visit 
beyond such a visit's ordinary length. Going down-stairs, conducted 
by his host, he found the Obenreizer counting-house at the back of 

2n 



546 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

the entrance-ball, and several shabby men in outlandish garments, 
hanging about, whom Obenreizer put aside that he might pass, with 
a few words in j^citois. 

" Countrymen," he explained, as he attended Vendale to the door, 
"Poor compatriots. Grateful and attached, like dogs ! Good-bye. 
To meet again. So glad ! " 

Tw^o more light touches on his elbows dismissed him into the 
street. 

Sweet Marguerite at her frame, and Madame Dor's broad back 
at her telegraph, floated before him to Cripple Corner. On his ar- 
rival there. Wilding was closeted with Bintrey. The cellar doors 
happening to be open, Vendale lighted a candle in a cleft stick, 
and went down for a cellarous stroll. Graceful Marguerite floated 
before him faithfully, but Madame Dor's broad back remained 
outside. 

The vaults were very spacious, and very old. There had been 
a stone crypt down there, when bygones were not bygones ; some 
said, part of a monkish refectory ; some said, of a chapel ; some 
said, of a Pagan temple. It was all one now. Let who would, 
make what he liked of a crumbled pillar and a broken arch or so. 
Old time had made what he liked of it, and was quite indifferent 
to contradiction. 

The close air, the musty smell, and the thunderous rumbling in 
the streets above, as being out of the routine of ordinary life, went 
wtU enough wdth the picture of pretty Marguerite holding her own 
against those two. So Vendale w^ent on until, at a turning in the 
vaults, he saw a light like the light he carried. 

" Oh ! You are here, are you, Joey 1 " 

" Oughtn't it rather to go, ' Oh ! You've here, are you. Master 
George 1 ' For it's my business to be here. But it ain't yourn." 

"Don't grumble, Joey." 

" Oh ! / don't grumble," returned the Cellarman. " If any- 
thing grumbles, it's what I've took in through the pores ; it ain't 
me. Have a care as something in you don't begin a-grumbling, 
Master George. Stop here long enough for the wapours to work, 
and they'll be at it." 

His present occupation consisted of poking his head into the 
pins, making measurements and mental calculations, and entering 
them in a rhinoceros-hide-looking note-book, like a piece of himself 

" They'll be at it," he resumed, laying the wooden rod that he 
measured wdth, across tw^o casks, entering his last calculation, and 
straightening his back, " trust 'em ! And so you've regularly come 
into the business. Master George 1 " 

" Regularly. I hope you don't object, Joey ? " 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 547 

"/ don't, bless you. But Wapours objects that you're too 
young. You're both on you too young." 

" We shall get over that objection day by day, Joey." 

"Ay, Master George ; but I shall day by day get over the ob- 
jection that I'm too old, and so I shan't be capable of seeing much 
improvement in you." 

The retort so tickled Joey Ladle that he grunted forth a laugh 
and delivered it again, grunting forth another laugh after the second 
edition of "improvement in you." 

"But what's no laughing matter. Master George," he resumed, 
straightening his back once more, "is, that Young Master Wilding 
has gone and changed the luck. Mark my words. He has changed 
the luck, and he'll find it out. / ain't been down here all my life 
for nothing ! / know, by what / notices down here, when it's a 
gohig to rain, when it's a going to hold up, when it's a going to 
blow, when it's a going to be calm. / know, by wdiat I notices 
down here, when the luck's changed, quite as well." 

" Has this growth on the roof anything to do with your divina- 
tion ! " asked Vendale, holding his light towards a gloomy ragged 
growth of dark fungus, pendent from the arches with a very disa- 
greeable and repellent effect. We are famous for this growth in 
this vault, aren't we?" 

"We are. Master George," replied Joey Ladle, moving a step or 
two away, "and if you'll be advised by me, you'll let it alone." 

Taking up the rod just now laid across the two casks, and faintly 
moving the lanquid fungus with it, Vendale asked, "Ay, indeed? 
Why so?" 

" Why, not so much because it rises from the casks of wine, 
and may leave you to judge what sort of stuff a Cellarman takes 
into himself when he walks in the same all the days of his life, 
nor yet so much because at a stage of its growth it's maggots, and 
you'll fetch 'em down upon you," returned Joey Ladle, still keeping 
away, " as for another reason. Master George." 

" What other reason ? " 

" (I wouldn't keep on touchin' it, if I was you, sir.) I'll tell you 
if you'll come out of the place. First, take a look at its colour. 
Master George." 

" I am doing so," 

"Done, sir. Now, come out of the place." 

He moved away with his light, and Vendale followed with his. 
When Vendale came up with him, and they were going back 
together, Vendale, eying him as they walked through the arches, 
said: "Well, Joey? The colour." 

" Is it like clotted blood. Master George?" 



548 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

" Like enough, perhaps." 

" More than enough, I think," muttered Joey Ladle, shaking his 
head solemnly. 

" Well, say it is like ; say it is exactly like. What then ? " 

"Master George, they do say " 

"Who?" 

" How should I know who ? " rejoined the Cellarman, apparently 
much exasperated by the unreasonable nature of the question. 
" Them ! Them as says pretty well everything, you know. How 
should I know who They are, if you don't 1 " 

" True. Go on." 

" They do say that the man that gets by any accident a piece of 
that dark growth right upon his breast, will, for sure and certain, 
die by Murder." 

As Vendale laughingly stopped to meet the Cellarman's eyes, 
which he had fastened on his light while dreamily saving those 
words, he suddenly became conscious of being struck upon his own 
breast by a heavy hand. Instantly following with his eyes the 
action of the hand that struck him — which was his companion's 
— he saw that it had beaten off his breast a web or clot of the 
fungus, even then floating to the ground. 

For a moment he turned upon the Cellarman almost as scared 
a look as the Cellarman turned upon him. But in another moment 
they had reached the daylight at the foot of the cellar-steps, and 
before he cheerfully sprang up them, he blew out his candle and 
the superstition together. 

EXIT WILDING. 

On the morning of the next day, Wilding went out alone, after 
leaving a message with his clerk. " If Mr. Vendale should ask for 
me," he said, "or if Mr. Bintrey should call, teU them I am gone 
to the Foundling." All that his partner had said to him, all that 
his lawyer, following on the same side, could urge, had left him 
persisting unshaken in his own point of view. To find the lost 
man, whose place he had usurped, was now the paramount interest 
of his life, and to inquire at the Foundling was plainly to take the 
first step in the direction of discovery. To the Foundling, accord- 
ingly, the wine-merchant now went. 

The once familiar aspect of the building was altered to him, as 
the look of the portrait over the chimney-piece was altered to him. 
His one dearest association with the place which had sheltered his 
childhood had been broken away from it for ever. A strange re- 
luctance possessed him, when he stated his business at the door. 
His heart ached as he sat alone in the waiting-room while the 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 549 

Treasurer of the institution was being sent for to see him. When 
the interview began, it was only by a painful effort that he could 
compose himself sufficiently to mention the nature of his errand. 

The Treasurer listened with a face which promised all needful 
attention, and promised nothing more. 

*'We are obliged to be cautious," he said, when it came to his 
turn to speak, " about all inquiries which are made by strangers." 

"You can hardly consider me a stranger," answered Wilding, 
simply. " I was one of your poor lost children here, in the bygone 
time." 

The Treasurer politely rejoined that this circumstance inspired 
him with a special interest in his visitor. But he pressed, never- 
theless, for that visitor's motive in making his inquiry. Without 
further preface. Wilding told him his motive, suppressing nothing. 

The Treasurer rose, and led the way into the room in which the 
registers of the institution were kept. " All the information which 
our books can give is heartily at your service," he said. " After 
the time that has elapsed, I am afraid it is the only information 
we have to offer you." 

The books were consulted, and the entry was found, expressed 
as follows : 

"3d March, 1836. Adopted, and removed from the Foundling 
Hospital, a male infant, named Walter Wilding. Name and con- 
dition of the person adopting the child — Mrs. Jane Ann Miller, 
widow. Address — Lime-Tree Lodge, Groombridge Wells. Refer- 
ences — the Reverend John Harker, Groombridge Wells ; and 
Messrs. Giles, Jeremie, and Giles, bankers, Lombard-street." 

"Is that alH" asked the wine-merchant. "Had you no after- 
communication with Mrs. Miller ? " 

"None — or some reference to it must have appeared in this 
book." 

" May I take a copy of the entry 1 " 

" Certainly ! You are a little agitated. Let me make the copy 
for you." 

"My only chance, I suppose," said Wilding, looking sadly at 
the copy, "is to inquire at Mrs. Miller's residence, and to try if 
her references can help me ? " 

" That is the only chance I see at present," answered the Treas- 
urer. "I heartily wish I could have been of some further assistance 
to you." 

With those farewell words to comfort him. Wilding set forth on 
the journey of investigation which began from the Foundling doors. 
The first stage to make for, was plainly the house of business of 
the bankers in Lombard-street. Two of the partners in the firm 



550 jS^O thoroughfare. 

were inaccessible to chance-visitors when lie asked for them. The 
third, after raising certain inevitable difficulties, consented to let ; 
clerk examine the Ledger marked with the initial letter "M. 
The account of Mrs. Miller, widow, of Groombridge Wells, was 
found. Two long lines, in faded ink, were drawn across it ; and at 
the bottom of the page there appeared this note : " Account closed, 
September 30th, 1837." 

So the first stage of the journey was reached — -and so it ended 
in No Thoroughfare ! After sending a note to Cripple Corner to 
inform his partner that his absence might be prolonged for some 
hours, Wilding took his place in the train, and started for the 
second stage on the journey — Mrs. Miller's residence at Groom- 
bridge Wells. 

Mothers and children travelled with him ; mothers and children 
met each other at the station; mothers and children were in the 
shops when he entered them to inquire for Lime-Tree Lodge. 
Everywhere, the nearest and dearest of human relations showed 
itself happily in the happy light of day. Everywhere, he was 
reminded of the treasured delusion from which he had been 
awakened so cruelly — of the lost memory which had passed from 
him like a reflection from a glass. 

Inquiring here, inquiring there, he could hear of no such place 
as Lime-Tree Lodge. Passing a house-agent's office, he went in 
wearily, and put the question for the last time. The house-agent 
pointed across the street to a dreary mansion of many windows, 
which might have been a manufactory, but which was an hotel. 
"That's where Lime-Tree Lodge stood, sir," said the man, "ten 
years ago." 

The second stage reached, and No Thoroughfare again ! 

But one chance was left. The clerical reference, Mr. Harker, 
still remained to be found. Customers coming in at the moment 
to occupy the house-agent's attention. Wilding went down the 
street, and, entering a bookseller's shop, asked if he could be in- 
formed of the Reverend John Harker's present address. 

The bookseller looked unaff'ectedly shocked and astonished, and 
made no answer. 

Wilding repeated his question. 

The bookseller took up from his counter a prim little volume in 
a binding of sober grey. He handed it to his visitor, open at the 
title-page. Wilding read : 

" The martyrdom of the Reverend John Harker in New Zealand. 
Related by a former member of his flock." 

Wilding put the book down on tlie counter. "I beg your 
pardon," he said, thinking a little, perhaps, of his own present 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 551 

martyrdom while he spoke. The silent bookseller acknowledged 
the apology by a bow. Wilding went out. 

Third and last stage, and No Thoroughfare for the third and last 
time. 

There was nothing more to be done; there was absolutely no 
choice but to go back to London, defeated at all points. From time 
to time on the return journey, the wine-merchant looked at his 
copy of the entry in the Foundling Register. There is one among 
the many forms of despair — perhaps the most pitiable of all — 
which persists in disguising itself as Hope. Wilding checked him- 
self in the act of throwing the useless morsel of paper out of the 
carriage window. "It may lead to something yet," he thought. 
"While I live, I won't part with it. When I die, my executors 
shall find it sealed up with my will." 

Now, the mention of his will set the good wine-merchant on a 
new track of thought, without diverting his mind from its engross- 
ing subject. He must make his will immediately. 

The application of the phrase. No Thoroughfare, to the case had 
originated with Mr. Bintrey. In their first long conference follow- 
ing the discovery, that sagacious personage had a hundred times 
repeated, with an obstructive shake of the head, " No Thorough- 
fare, sir, No Thoroughfare. My belief is that there is no way out 
of this at this time of day, and my advice is, make yourself com- 
fortable where you are." 

In the course of the protracted consultation, a magnum of the 
forty-five year old port wine had been produced for the wetting of 
Mr. Bintrey's legal whistle ; but the more clearly he saw his way 
through the wine, the more emphatically he did not see his way 
through the case; repeating as often as he set his glass down empty, 
"Mr. Wilding, No Thoroughfare. Rest and be thankful." 

It is certain that the honest wine-merchant's anxiety to make a 
will originated in profound conscientiousness ; though it is possible 
(and quite consistent with his rectitude) that he may unconsciously 
have derived some feeling of relief from the prospect of delegating 
his own difficulty to two other men who were to come after him. 
Be that as it m.ay, he pursued his new track of thought with great 
ardour, and lost no time in begging George Vendale and Mr. Bin- 
trey to meet him in Cripple Corner and share his confidence. 

" Being all three assembled with closed doors," said Mr. Bintrey, 
addressing the new partner on the occasion, " I wish to observe, be- 
fore our friend (and my client) entrusts us with his further views, 
that I have endorsed what I understand from him to have been 
your advice, Mr. Vendale, and what would be the advice of every 
sensible man. I have told him that he positively must keep his 



552 NO THOROUGHFARE 

secret. I have spoken with Mrs. Goldstraw, both in his presence 
and in his absence; and if anybody is to be trusted (which is ., 
very large IF), I think she is to be trusted to that extent. J 
have pointed out to our friend (and my client), that to set on for 
random inquiries would not only be to raise the Devil, in the like- 
ness of all the swindlers in the kingdom, but would also be to waste 
the estate. Now, you see, Mr. Vendale, our friend (and my client) 
does not desire to waste the estate, but, on the contrary, desires to 
husband it for what he considers — but I can't say I do — the 
rightful owner, if such rightful owner should ever be found. I am 
very much mistaken if he ever will be, but never mind that. Mr. 
Wilding and I are, at least, agreed that the estate is not to be 
wasted. Now, I have yielded to Mr. Wilding's desire to keep an 
advertisement at intervals flowing through the newspapers, cau- 
tiously inviting any person who may know anything about that 
adopted infant, taken from the Foundling Hospital, to come to my 
oifice ; and I have pledged myself that such advertisement shall 
regularly appear. I have gathered from our friend (and my client) 
that I meet you here to-day to take his instructions, not to give 
him advice. I am prepared to receive his instructions, and to 
respect his wishes ; but you will please observe that this does not 
imply my approval of either as a matter of professional opinion." 

Thus Mr. Bintrey; talking quite as much at Wilding as to 
Vendale. And yet, in spite of his care for his client, he was so 
amused by his client's Quixotic conduct, as to eye him from time to 
time with twinkling eyes, in the light of a highly comical curiosity. 

" Nothing," observed Wilding, " can be clearer. I only wish my 
head were as clear as yours, Mr. Bintrey." 

"If you feel that singing in it coming on," hinted the lawyer, 
with an alarmed glance, "put it off". — I mean the interview." 

"Not at all, I thank you," said Wilding. "What was I going 
to " 

"Don't excite yourself, Mr. Wilding," urged the lawyer. 

"No; I wasn't going to," said the wine-merchant. "Mr. Bin- 
trey and George Vendale, would you have any hesitation or objec- 
tion to become my joint trustees and executors, or can you at once 
consent 1 " 

"/consent," replied George Vendale, readily. 

"/consent," said Bintrey, not so readily. 

"Thank you both. Mr. Bintrey, my instructions for my last 
wiU and testament are short and plain. Perhaps you will now 
have the goodness to take them down. I leave the whole of my 
real and personal estate, without any exception or reservation what- 
soever, to you two, my joint trustees and executors, in trust to pay 



NO THOROUGHEARE. 553 

over the whole to the true Walter Wilding, if he shall be found and 
identified within two years after the day of my death. Failing 
that, in trust to you two to pay over the whole as a benefaction 
and legacy to the Foundling Hospital." 

"Those are all your instructions, are they, Mr. Wilding?" de- 
manded Bintrey, after a blank silence, during which nobody had 
looked at anybody. 

" The whole." 

"And as to those instructions, you have absolutely made up 
your mind, Mr. Wilding ? " 

"Absolutely, decidedly, finally." 

"It only remains," said the lawyer, with one shrug of his 
shoulders, "to get them into technical and binding form, and to 
execute and attest. Now, does that press? Is there any hurry 
about it? You are not going to die yet, sir." 

" Mr. Bintrey," answered Wilding, gravely, "when I am going to 
die is within other knowledge than yours or mine. I shall be glad 
to have this matter off" my mind, if you please." 

"AVe are lawyer and client again," rejoined Bintrey, who, for 
the nonce, had become almost sympathetic. " If this day week — 
here, at the same hour — will suit Mr. Vendale and yourself, I 
will enter in my Diary that I attend you accordingly." 

The appointment was made, and in due sequence kept. The 
will was formally signed, sealed, delivered, and witnessed, and was 
carried off" by Mr. Bintrey for safe storage among the papers of his 
clients, ranged in their respective iron boxes, with their respective 
owners' names outside, on iron tiers in his consulting-room, as if that 
legal sanctuary were a condensed Family Vault of Clients. 

With more heart than he had lately had for former subjects of 
interest, Wilding then set about completing his patriarchal es- 
tablishment, being much assisted not only by Mrs. Goldstraw but 
by Vendale too : who, perhaps, had in his mind the giving of an 
Obenreizer dinner as soon as possible. Anyhow, the establishment 
being reported in sound working order, the Obenreizers, Guardian 
and Ward, were asked to dinner, and Madame Dor was included in 
the invitation. If Vendale had been over head and ears in love 
before — a phrase not to be taken as implying the faintest doubt 
about it — this dinner plunged him down in love ten thousand 
fathoms deep. Yet, for the life of him, he could not get one word 
alone with charming Marguerite. So surely as a blessed moment 
seemed to come, Obenreizer, in his filmy state, would stand at 
Vendale's elbow, or the broad back of Madame Dor would appear 
before his eyes. That speechless matron was never seen in a front 
view, from the moment of her arrival to that of her departure — 



554 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

except at dinner. And from the instant of her retirement to the 
drawing-room, after a hearty participation in that meal, she turned 
her face to the wall again. 

Yet, through four or five delightful though distracting hours. 
Marguerite was to be seen. Marguerite was to be heard, Marguerite 
was to be occasionally touched. When they made the round of the 
old dark cellars, Vendale led her by the hand ; when she sang to 
him in the lighted room at night, Vendale, standing by her, held 
her relinquished gloves, and would have bartered against them 
every drop of the forty -five year old, though it had been forty-five 
times forty-five years old, and its nett price forty-five times forty-five 
pounds per dozen. And still, when she was gone, and a great gap 
of an extinguisher was clapped on Cripple Corner, he tormented 
himself by wondering. Did she think that he admired her ! Did 
she think that he adored her ! Did she suspect that she had won 
him, heart and soul ! Did she care to think at all about it ! And 
so. Did she and Didn't she, up and down the gamut, and above 
the line and below the line, dear, dear ! Poor restless heart of 
humanity ! To think that the men who were mummies thousands 
of years ago, did the same, and ever found the secret how to be 
quiet after it ! 

" What do you think, George," Wilding asked him next day, " of 
Mr. Obenreizer ? (I won't ask you what you think of Miss Oben- 
reizer.) " 

"I don't know," said Vendale, "and I never did know, what to 
think of him." 

"He is well informed and clever," said Wilding. 

" Certainly clever." 

" A good musician." (He had played very well, and sung very 
well, overnight.) 

" Unquestionably a good musician." 

"And talks well." 

"Yes," said George Vendale, ruminating, "and talks well. Do 
you know. Wilding, it oddly occurs to me, as I think about him, 
that he doesn't keep silence well ! " 

" How do you mean? He is not obtrusively talkative." 

" No, and I don't mean that. But when he is silent, you can 
hardly help vaguely, though perhaps most unjustly, mistrusting him. 
Take people whom you know and like. Take any one you know 
and like." 

" Soon done, my good fellow," said Wilding. " I take you." 

"I didn't bargain for that, or foresee it," returned Vendale, 
laughing. " However, take me. Reflect for a moment. Is your 
approving knowledge of my interesting face mainly founded (how- 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 555 

ever various the momentary expressions it may include) on my 
face when I am silent 1 " 

" I think it is," said Wilding. 

" I think so too. Now, you see, when Obenreizer speaks — in 
other words, when he is allowed to explain himself away — he 
comes out right enough ; but when he has not the opportunity of 
explaining himself away, he comes out rather wrong. Therefore 
it is, that I say he does not keep silence well. And passing 
hastily in review such faces as I know, and^ don't trust, I am 
inclined to think, now I give my mind to it, that none of them 
keep silence well." 

This proposition in Physiognomy being new to Wilding, he 
was at first slow to admit it, until asking himself the question 
whether Mrs. Goldstraw kept silence well, and remembering that 
her face in repose decidedly invited trustfulness, he was as glad as 
men usually are to believe what they desire to believe. 

But, as he was very slow to regain his spirits or his health, 
his partner, as another means of setting him up — and perhaps 
also with contingent Obenreizer views — reminded him of those 
musical schemes of his in connection with his family, and how 
a singing-class was to be formed in the house, and a Choir in a 
neighbouring church. The class was established speedily, and two 
or three of the people having already some musical knowledge, 
and singing tolerably, the Choir soon followed. The latter was 
led and chiefly taught, by Wilding himself: who had hopes of 
converting his dependents into so many Foundlings, in respect of 
their capacity to sing sacred choruses. 

Now, the Obenreizers being skilled musicians it was easily 
brought to pass that they should be asked to join these musical 
unions. Guardian and Ward consenting, or Guardian consenting 
for both, it was necessarily brought to pass that Vendale's life 
became a life of absolute thraldom and enchantment. For, in 
the mouldy Christopher- Wren church on Sundays, with its dearly 
beloved brethren assembled and met together, five-and-twenty 
strong, was not that Her voice that shot like light into the dark- 
est places, thrilling the walls and pillars as though they w^ere 
pieces of his heart ! What time, too, Madame Dor in a corner of 
the high pew, turning her back upon everybody and everything, 
could not fiiil to be Ritualistically right at some moment of the 
service ; like the man whom the doctors recommended to get 
drunk once a month, and who, that he might not overlook it, 
got drunk every day. 

But, even those seraphic Sundays were surpassed by the Wednes- 
day concerts established for. the patriarchal family. At those con- 



556 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

certs she would sit down to the piano and sing them, in her own 
tongue, songs of her own land, songs calling from the mountain- 
tops to Vendale, " Rise above the grovelling level country ; conic 
far away from the crowd ; pursue me as I mount higher, highci . 
higher, melting into the azure distance; rise to my supremi , 
height of all, and love me here ! " Then would the pretty bodice, 
the clocked stocking, and the silver-buckled shoe be, like the broad 
forehead and the bright eyes, fraught with the spring of a very 
chamois, until the strain Avas over. 

Not even over Vendale himself did these songs of hers cast 
a more potent spell than over Joey Ladle in his different way. 
Steadily refusing to muddle the harmony by taking any share 
in it, and evincing the supremest contempt for scales and such 
like rudiments of music — which, indeed, seldom captivate mere 
listeners — Joey did at first give up the whole business for a 
bad job, and the whole of the performers for a set of howling 
Dervishes. But, descrying traces of unmuddled harmony in a 
part-song one day, he gave his two under-cellarmen fliint hopes 
of getting on towards something in course of time. An anthem 
of Handel's led to further encouragement from him : though he 
objected that that great musician must have been down in some 
of them foreign cellars pretty much, for to go and say the same 
thing so many times over ; which, took it in how you might, he 
considered a certain sign of your having took it in somehow. 
On a third occasion, the public appearance of Mr. Jarvis with a 
flute, and of an odd man with a violin, and the performance of 
a duet by the two, did so astonish him that, solely of his own 
impulse and motion, he became inspired with the words, *'Ann 
Koar ! " repeatedly pronouncing them as if calling in a familiar 
manner for some lady who had distinguished herself in the 
orchestra. But this was his final testimony to the merits of 
his mates, for, the instrumental duet being performed at the 
first Wednesday concert, and being presently followed by the 
voice of Marguerite Obenreizer, he sat with his mouth wide 
open, entranced, until she had finished ; when, rising in his 
place with much solemnity, and prefacing what he was about 
to say with a bow that specially included Mr. Wilding in it. 
he delivered himself of the gratifying sentiment : " Arter that, 
ye may all on ye get to bed ! " And ever afterwards declined t" 
render homage in any other words to the musical powers of the 
family. 

Thus began a separate personal acquaintance between Marguerite 
Obenreizer and Joey Ladle. She laughed so heartily at his com- 
pliment, and yet was SO abashed by it, that Joey made bold to say 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 557 

to her, after the concert was over, he hoped he wasn't so muddled 
in his head as to have took a liberty ? She made him a gracious 
reply, and Joey ducked in return. 

" You'll change the luck time about. Miss," said Joey, ducking 
again. "It's such as you in the place that can bring round the 
luck of the place." 

"Can I? Round the luck?" she answered, in her pretty 
English, and with a pretty wonder. " I fear I do not understand. 
I am so stupid." 

"Young Master Wilding, Miss," Joey explained confidentially, 
though not much to her enlightenment, " changed the luck, afore 
he took in young Master George. So I say, and so they'll find. 
Lord ! Only come into the place and sing over the luck a few 
times, Miss, and it won't be able to help itself ! " 

With this, and with a whole brood of ducks, Joey backed out of 
the presence. But Joey being a privileged person, and even an 
involuntary conquest being pleasant to youth and beauty. Margue- 
rite merrily looked out for him next time. 

" Where is my Mr. Joey, please 1 " she asked of Vendale. 

So Joey was produced and shaken hands with, and that became 
an Institution. 

Another Institution arose in this wise. Joey was a little hard 
of hearing. He himself said it was "Wapours," and perhaps it 
might have been ; but whatever the cause of the effect, there the 
effect was, upon him. On this first occasion he had been seen to 
sidle along the wall, with his left hand to his left ear, until he had 
sidled himself into a seat pretty near the singer, in which place and 
position he had remained, until addressing to his friends the ama- 
teurs the compliment before mentioned. It was observed on the 
following Wednesday that Joey's action as a Pecking Machine was 
impaired at dinner, and it was rumoured about the table that this 
was explainable by his high-strung expectations of Miss Oben- 
reizer's singing, and his fears of not getting a place where he could 
hear every note and syllable. The rumour reaching Wilding's ears, 
he in his good nature called Joey to the front at night before 
Marguerite began. Thus the Institution came into being that on 
succeeding nights. Marguerite, running her hands over the keys 
before singing, always said to Vendale, " Where is my Mr. Joey, 
please?" and that Vendale always brought him forth, and 
stationed him near by. That he should then, when all eyes were 
upon him, express in his face the utmost contempt for the exertions 
of his friends and confidence in Marguerite alone, whom he would 
stand contemplating, not unlike the rhinoceros out of the spelling- 
book, tamed and on his hind legs, was a part of the Institution. 



558 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

Also that when he remained after the singing in his most ecstatic 
state, some bold spirit from the back should say, " What do you 
think of it, Joey ? " and he should be goaded to reply, as having 
that instant conceived the retort, "Arter that ye may all on ye 
get to bed ! " These were other parts of the Institution. 

But the simple pleasures and small jests of Cripple Corner were 
not destined to have a long life. Underlying them from the first 
was a serious matter, which every member of the patriarchal fam- 
ily knew of, but which, by tacit agreement, all forbore to speak of. 
Mr. Wilding's health was in a bad way. 

He might have overcome the shock he had sustained in the one 
great afiectiou of his life, or he might have overcome his conscious- 
ness of being in the enjoyment of another man's property; but the 
two together were too much for him. A man haunted by twin 
ghosts, he became deeply depressed. The inseparable spectres sat 
at the board with him, ate from his platter, drank from his cup, 
and stood by his bedside at night. When he recalled his supposed 
mother's love, he felt as though he had stolen it. When he 
rallied a little under the respect and attachment of his dependents, 
he felt as though he were even fraudulent in making them happy, 
for that should have been the unknown man's duty and gratification. 

Gradually, under the pressure of his brooding mind, his body 
stooped, his step lost its elasticity, his eyes were seldom lifted from 
the ground. He knew he could not help the deplorable mistake 
that had been made, but he knew he could not mend it ; for the 
days and weeks went by, and no one claimed his name or his pos- 
sessions. And now there began to creep over him a cloudy con- 
sciousness of often recurring confusion in his head. He would 
unaccountably lose, sometimes whole hours, sometimes a whole day 
and night. Once, his remembrance stopped as he sat at the head 
of the dinner- table, and was blank until daybreak. Another time, it 
stopped as he was beating time to their singing, and went on again 
when he and his partner were walking in the courtyard by the 
light of the moon, half the night later. He asked Vendale (always 
full of consideration, work, and help) how this was ? Vendale only 
replied, "You have not been quite well; that's all." He looked 
for explanation into the faces of his people. But they would put 
it off with, "Glad to see you looking so much better, sir;" or 
" Hope you're doing nicely now, sir ; " in which was no information 
at all. 

At length, when the partnership was but five months old, Walter 
Wilding took to his bed, and his housekeeper became his nurse. 

" Lying here, perhaps you will not mind my calling you Sally, 
Mrs. Goldstraw ? " said the poor wine-merchant. 



NO THOROUGHFAKE. 559 

" It sounds more natural to me, sir, than any other name, and I 
like it better." 

" Thank you, Sally. I think, Sally, I must of late have been 
subject to fits. Is that so, Sally? Don't mind telling me now." 

"It has happened, sir." 

"Ah ! That is the explanation ! " he quietly remarked. "Mr. 
Obenreizer, Sally, talks of the world being so small that it is 
not strange how often the same people come together, and come 
together, at various places, and in various stages of life. But it 
does seem strange, Sally, that I should, as I may say, come round 
to the Foundling to die." 

He extended his hand to her, and she gently took it. 

"You are not going to die, dear Mr. Wilding." 

" So Mr. Bintrey said, but I think he was wrong. The old 
child-feeling is coming back upon me, Sally. The old hush and 
rest, as I used to fall asleep." 

After an interval he said, in a placid voice, " Please kiss me, 
Nurse," and, it was evident, believed himself to be lying in the old 
Dormitory. 

As she had been used to bend over the fatherless and motherless 
children, Sally bent over the fatherless and motherless man, and 
put her lips to his forehead, murmuring : 

" God bless you ! " 

" God bless you ! " he replied, in the same tone. 

After another interval, he opened his eyes in his own character, 
and said : "Don't move me, Sally, because of what I am going to 
say ; I lie quite easily. I think my time is come. I don't know 
how it may appear to you, Sally, but " 

Insensibility fell upon him for a few minutes ; he emerged from 
it once more. 

" — I don't know how it may appear to you, Sally, but so it 
appears to me." 

When he had thus conscientiously finished his favourite sentence, 
his time came, and he died. 



Act II. 

VENDALE MAKES LOVE. 

The summer and the autumn had passed. Christmas and the 
New Year were at hand. 

As executors honestly bent on performing their duty towards the 
dead, Vendale and Bintrey had held more than one anxious con- 
sultation on the subject of Wilding's will. The lawyer had de- 



560 NO THOKOUGHFARE. 

clarecl, from the first, that it was simply impossible to take any 
useful action in the matter at all. The only obvious inquiries to 
make, in relation to the lost man, had been made already by 
Wilding himself ; with this result, that time and death together 
had not left a trace of him discoverable. To advertise for the 
claimant to the property, it would be necessary to mention par- 
ticulars — a course of proceeding which would invite half the 
impostors in England to present themselves in the character of 
the true Walter Wilding. " If we find a chance of tracing the 
lost man, we will take it. If we don't, let us meet for another 
consultation on the first anniversary of Wilding's death." So 
Bintrey advised. And so, with the most earnest desire to fulfil 
his dead friend's wishes, Vendale was fain to let the matter rest 
for the present. 

Turning from his interest in the past to his interest in the 
future, Vendale still found himself confronting a doubtful prospect. 
Months on months had passed since his first visit to Soho-square 
— and through all that time, the one language in which he had 
told Marguerite that' he loved her was the language of the eyes, 
assisted, at convenient opportunities, by the language of the 
hand. 

What was the obstacle in his way 1 The one immovable ob- 
stacle which had been in his way from the first. No matter how 
fairly the opportunities looked, Vendale's efforts to speak with 
Marguerite alone, ended invariably in one and the same result. 
Under the most accidental circumstances, in the most innocent 
manner possible, Obenreizer was always in the way. 

With the last days of the old year came an unexpected chance 
of spending an evening with Marguerite, which Vendale resolved 
should be a chance of speaking privately to her as well. A 
cordial note from Obenreizer invited him, on New Year's Day, to a 
little family dinner in Soho-square. "We shall be only four," 
the note said. " We shall be only two," Vendale determined, 
" before the evening is out ! " 

New Year's Day among the English, is associated with the 
giving and receiving of dinners, and with nothing more. New 
Year's Day, among the foreigners, is the grand opportunity of the 
year for the giving and receiving of presents. It is occasionally pos- 
sible to acclimatise a foreign custom. In this instance Vendale 
felt no hesitation about making the attempt. His one difficulty 
was to decide what his New Year's gift to Marguerite should be. 
The defensive pride of the peasant's daughter — morbidly sensitive 
to the inequality between her social position and his — would be 
secretly roused against him if he ventured on a rich offering. A 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 561 

gift, which a poor man's purse might purchase, was the one gift 
that could be trusted to find its way to her heart, for the giver's 
sake. Stoutly resisting temptation, in the form of diamonds and 
rubies, Yendale bought a brooch of the filagree-work of Genoa — 
the simplest and most unpretending ornament that he could find 
in the jeweller's shop. 

He slipped his gift into Marguerite's hand as she held it out to 
welcome him on the day of the dinner. 

" This is your first New Year's Day in England," he said. 
"Will you let me help to make it like a -New Year's Day at 
home?" 

She thanked him, a little constrainedly, as she looked at the 
jeweller's box, uncertain what it might contain. Opening the box, 
and discovering the studiously simple form under which Yendale's 
little keepsake ofi'ered itself to her, she penetrated his motive on 
the spot. Her face turned on him brightly, with a look which 
said, " I own you have pleased and flattered me." Never had she 
been so charming, in Yendale's eyes, as she was at that moment. 
Her winter dress — a petticoat of dark silk, with a bodice of black 
velvet rising to her neck, and enclosing it softly in a little circle of 
swansdown — heightened, by all the force of contrast, the dazzling 
fairness of her hair and her complexion. It was only when she 
turned aside from him to the glass, and, taking out the brooch that she 
wore, put his New Year's gift in its place, that Yendale's attention 
wandered far enough away from her to discover the presence of 
other persons in the room. He now became conscious that the 
hands of Obenreizer were aff"ectionately in possession of his elbows. 
He now heard the voice of Obenreizer thanking him for his atten- 
tion to Marguerite, with the faintest possible ring of mockery in 
its tone. ("Such a simple present, dear sir! and showing such 
nice tact ! ") He now discovered, for the first time, that there was 
one other guest, and but one, besides himself, whom Obenreizer pre- 
sented as a compatriot and friend. The friend's face was mouldy, 
and the friend's figure was fat. His age was suggestive of the 
autumnal period of human life. In the course of the evening he 
developed two extraordinary capacities. One was a capacity for 
silence ; the other was a capacity for emptying bottles. 

Madame Dor was not in the room. Neither was there any 
visible place reserved for her when they sat down to table. 
Obenreizer explained that it was "the good Dor's simple habit 
to dine always in the middle of the day. She would make her 
excuses later in the evening." Yendale wondered whether the 
good Dor had, on this occasion, varied her domestic employment 
from cleaning Obenreizer's gloves to cooking Obenreizer's dinner. 

2o 



562 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

This at least was certain — the dishes served were, one and all, 
as achievements in cookery, high above the reach of the rude 
elementary art of England. The dinner was unobtrusively per- 
fect. As for the wine, the eyes of the speechless friend rolled 
over it, as in solemn ecstasy. Sometimes he said " Good ! " when 
a bottle came in full; and sometimes he said "Ah!" when a 
bottle went out empty — and there his contributions to the gaiety 
of the evening ended. 

Silence is occasionally infectious. Oppressed by private anxie- 
ties of their own, Marguerite and Vendale appeared to feel the 
influence of the speechless friend. The whole responsibility of 
keeping the talk going rested on Obeureizer's shoulders, and man- 
fully did Obenreizer sustain it. He opened his heart in the char- 
acter of an enlightened foreigner, and sang the praises of England. 
When other topics ran dry, he returned to this inexhaustible 
source, and always set the stream running again as copiously as 
ever. Obenreizer would have given an arm, an eye, or a leg to 
have been born an Englishman. Out of England there was no 
such institution as a home, no such thing as a fire-side, no such 
object as a beautiful woman. His dear Miss Marguerite would 
excuse him, if he accounted for her attractions on the theory that 
English blood must have mixed at some former time with their 
obscure and unknown ancestry. Survey this English nation, and 
behold a tall, clean, plump, and solid people ! Look at their 
cities ! What magnificence in their public buildings ! What 
admirable order and propriety in their streets ! Admire their 
laws, combining the eternal principle of justice with the other 
eternal principle of pounds, shillings, and pence; and applying 
the product to all civil injuries, from an injury to a man's honour, 
to an injury to a man's nose ! You have ruined my daughter — 
pounds, shillings, and pence ! You have knocked me down with 
a blow in my face — pounds, shillings, and pence ! Where was 
the material prosperity of such a country as that to stop ? Oben- 
reizer, projecting himself into the future, failed to see the end of 
it. Obenreizer's enthusiasm entreated permission to exhale itself, 
English fashion, in a toast. Here is our modest little dinner over, 
here is our frugal dessert on the table, and here is the admirer 
of England conforming to national customs, and making a speech ! 
A toast to your white cliff's of Albion, Mr. Vendale ! to your 
national virtues, your charming climate, and your fascinating 
women ! to your Hearths, to your Homes, to your Habeas Corpus, 
and to all your other institutions ! In one word — to England ! 
Heep-heep-heep ! hooray ! 

Obenreizer's voice had barely chanted the last note of the 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 563 

English cheer, the speechless friend had barely drained the last 
drop out of his glass, when the festive proceedings were inter- 
rupted by a modest tap at the door. A woman-servant came in, 
and approached her master with a little note in her hand. Oben- 
reizer opened the note with a frown ; and, after reading it with an 
expression of genuine annoyance, passed it on to his compatriot 
and friend. Vendale's spirits rose as he watched these proceed- 
ings. Had he found an ally in the annoying little note? Was 
the long-looked-for chance actually coming at last ? 

" I am afraid there is no help for it ? " said Obenreizer, address- 
ing his fellow-countryman. " I am afraid we must go." 

The speechless friend handed back the letter, shrugged his 
heavy shoulders, and poured himself out a last glass of wine. 
His fat fingers lingered fondly round the neck of the bottle. 
They pressed it with a little amatory squeeze at parting. His 
globular eyes looked dimly, as through an intervening haze, at 
Vendale and Marguerite. His heavy articulation laboured, and 
brought forth a whole sentence at a birth. "I think," he said, 
" I should have liked a little more wine." His breath failed him 
after that effort ; he gasped, and walked to the door. 

Obenreizer addressed himself to Vendale with an appearance 
of the deepest distress. 

"I am so shocked, so confused, so distressed," he began. "A 
misfortune has happened to one of my compatriots. He is alone, 
he is ignorant of your language — I and my good friend, here, 
have no choice but to go and help him. What can I say in my 
excuse ? How can I describe my affliction at depriving myself in 
this way of the honour of your company 1 " 

He paused, evidently expecting to see Vendale take up his hat 
and retire. Discerning his opportunity at last, Vendale deter- 
mined to do nothing of the kind. He met Obenreizer dexterously, 
with Obenreizer's own weapons. 

"Pray don't distress yourself," he said. "I'll wait herewith 
the greatest pleasure till you come back." 

Marguerite blushed deeply, and turned away to her embroidery- 
frame in a corner by the window. The film showed itself in 
Obenreizer's eyes, and the smile came something sourly to Oben- 
reizer's lips. To have told Vendale that there was no reasonable 
prospect of his coming back in good time would have been to risk 
offending a man whose favourable opinion was of solid commercial 
importance to him. Accepting his defeat with the best possible 
grace, he declared himself to be equally honoured and delighted by 
Vendale's proposal. " So frank, so friendly, so English ! " He 
bustled about, apparently looking for something he wanted, dis- 



564 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

appeared for a moment through the folding- doors communicating 
with the next room, came back with his hat and coat, and pro- 
testing that he would return at the earliest possible moment, 
embraced Vendale's elbows, and vanished from the scene in 
company with the speechless friend. 

Vendale turned to the corner by the window, in which Mar- 
guerite had placed herself with her work. There, as if she had 
dropped from the ceiling, or come up through the floor — there, in 
the old attitude, with her face to the stove — sat an Obstacle that 
had not been foreseen, in the person of Madame Dor ! She half got 
up, half looked over her broad shoulder at Vendale, and plumped 
down again. Was she at work ? Yes. Cleaning Obenreizer's 
gloves, as before ? No ; darning Obenreizer's stockings. 

The case was now desperate. Two serious considerations pre- 
sented themselves to Vendale. Was it possible to put Madame 
Dor into the stove ? The stove wouldn't hold her. Was it 
possible to treat Madame Dor, not as a living woman but as an 
article of furniture ? Could the mind be brought to contemplate 
this respectable matron purely in the light of a chest of drawers, 
with a black gauze head-dress accidentally left on the top of it 1 
Yes, the mind could be brought to do that. With a comparatively 
trifling effort, Vendale's mind did it. As he took his place on the 
old-fashioned window-seat, close by Marguerite and her embroidery, 
a slight movement appeared in the chest of drawers, but no 
remark issued from it. Let it be remembered that solid furniture 
is not easy to move, and that it has this advantage in conse- 
quence — there is no fear of upsetting it. 

Unusually silent and unusually constrained — with the bright 
colour fast fading from her face, with a feverish energy possessing 
her fingers — the pretty Marguerite bent over her embroidery, 
and worked as if her life depended on it. Hardly less agitated 
himself, Vendale felt the importance of leading her very gently to 
the avowal which he was eager to make — to the other sweeter 
avowal still, which he was longing to hear. A woman's love is 
never to be taken by storm ; it yields insensibly to a system of 
gradual approach. It ventures by the roundabout way, and listens 
to the low voice. Vendale led her memory back to their past 
meetings when they were travelling together in Switzerland. They 
revived the impressions, they recalled the events, of the happy by- 
gone time. Little by little. Marguerite's constraint vanished. She 
smiled, she was interested, she looked at Vendale, she grew idle 
with her needle, she made false stitches in her work. Their voices 
sank lower and lower ; their faces bent nearer and nearer to each 
other as they spoke. And Madame Dor ? Madame Dor behaved 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 565 

like an angel. She never looked round ; she never said a word ; 
she went on with Obenreizer's stockings. Pulling each stocking 
up tight over her left arm, and holding that arm aloft from time 
to time, to catch the light on her work, there were moments, deli- 
cate and indescribable moments, when Madame Dor appeared to 
be sitting upside down, and contemplating one of her own respect- 
able legs elevated in the air. As the minutes wore on, these eleva- 
tions followed each other at longer and longer intervals. Now and 
again, the black gauze head-dress nodded, dropped forward, recov- 
ered itself. A little heap of stockings slid softly from Madame 
Dor's lap, and remained unnoticed on the flooi:- A prodigious ball 
of worsted followed the stockings, and rolled lazily under the table. 
The black gauze head-dress nodded, dropped forward, recovered 
itself, nodded again, dropped forward again, and recovered itself no 
more. A composite sound, partly as of the purring of an immense 
cat, partly as of the planing of a soft board, rose over the hushed 
voices of the lovers, and hummed at regular intervals through the 
room. Nature and Madame Dor had combined together in Ven- 
dale's interests. The best of women was asleep. 

Marguerite rose to stop — not the snoring — let us say, the 
audible repose of Madame Dor. Vendale laid his hand on her 
arm, and pressed her back gently into her chair. 

"Don't disturb her," he whispered. "I have been waiting to 
tell you a secret. Let me tell it now." 

Marguerite resumed her seat. She tried to resume her needle. 
It was useless; her eyes failed her; her hand failed her; she 
could find nothing. 

"We have been talking," said Vendale, "of the happy time 
when we first met, and first travelled together. I have a con- 
fession to make. I have been concealing something. When we 
spoke of my first visit to Switzerland, I told you of all the 
impressions I had brought back with me to England — except 
one. Can you guess what that one is 1 " 

Her eyes looked steadfastly at the embroidery, and her face 
turned a little away from him. Signs of disturbance began to 
appear in her neat velvet bodice, round the region of the brooch. 
She made no reply. Vendale pressed the question without mercy. 

"Can you guess what the one Swiss impression is, which I 
have not told you yet?" 

Her face turned back towards him, and a faint smile trembled 
on her lips. 

" An impression of the mountains, perhaps ? " she said, slily. 

" No ; a much more precious impression than that." 

"Of the lakes?" 



566 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

" No. The lakes have not grown dearer and dearer in remem- 
brance to me every day. The lakes are not associated with my 
happiness in the present, and my hopes in the future. Mar- 
guerite ! all that makes life worth having hangs, for me, on a 
word from your lips. Marguerite ! I love you ! " 

Her head dropped, as he took her hand. He drew her to him, 
and looked at her. The tears escaped from her downcast eyes, 
and fell slowly over her cheeks. 

"Oh, Mr. Vendale," she said, sadly, "it would have been 
kinder to have kept your secret. Have you forgotten the dis- 
tance between us 1 It can never, never, be ! " 

" There can be but one distance between us. Marguerite — a 
distance of your making. My love, my darling, there is no higher 
rank in goodness, there is no higher rank in beauty, than yours ! 
Come ! whisper the one little word which tells me you will be 
my wife ! " 

She sighed bitterly. "Think of your family," she murmured; 
" and think of mine ! " 

Vendale drew her a little nearer to him. 

"If you dwell on such an obstacle as that," he said, "I shall 
think but one thought — I shall think I have offended you." 

She started, and looked up. " Oh, no ! " she exclaimed, inno- 
cently. The instant the words passed her lips, she saw the con- 
struction that might be placed on them. Her confession had 
escaped her in spite of herself. A lovely flush of colour over- 
spread her face. She made a momentary effort to disengage 
herself from her lover's embrace. She looked up at him entreat- 
ingly. She tried to speak. The words died on her lips in the 
kiss that Vendale pressed on them. " Let me go, Mr. Vendale ! " 
she said, faintly. 

" Call me George." 

She laid her head on his bosom. All her heart went out to him 
at last. " George ! " she whispered. 

" Say you love me ! " 

Her arms twined themselves gently round his neck. Her lips, 
timidly touching his cheek, murmured the delicious words — "I 
love you ! " 

In the moment of silence that followed, the sound of the open- 
ing and closing of the house-door came clear to them through the 
wintry stillness of the street. 

Marguerite started to her feet. 

" Let me go ! " she said. " He has come back ! " 

She hurried from the room, and touched Madame Dor's shoulder 
in passing. Madame Dor woke up with a loud snort, looked first 



NO THOKOUGHFARE. 567 

over one shoulder and then over the other, peered down into her 
lap and discovered neither stockings, worsted, nor darning-needle 
in it At the same moment, footsteps became audible ascendmg 
the stairs. " Mon Dieu ! " said Madame Dor, addressing herself 
to the stove, and trembling violently. Vendale picked up the 
stockino-s and the ball, and huddled them all back in a heap over 
her shoulder. "Mon Dieu!" said Madame Dor, for the second 
time as the avalanche of worsted poured into her capacious lap. 

The door opened, and Obenreizer came in. His first glance 
round the room showed him that Marguerite was absent. 

"What ! " he exclaimed, "my niece is away? My niece is not 
here to entertain you in my absence? This is unpardonable. I 
shall bring her back instantly." 

Vendale stopped him. 

"I beg you wiU not disturb Miss Obenreizer," he said. You 
have returned, I see, without your friend ?" • . a 

" My friend remains, and consoles our afflicted compatriot. A 
heart-rending scene, Mr. Vendale ! The household gods at the 
pawnbroker's — the family immersed in tears. We all embraced 
in silence. My admirable friend alone possessed his composure. 
He sent out, on the spot, for a bottle of wine." 

" Can I say a word to you in private, Mr. Obenreizer? 

"Assuredly." He turned to Madame Dor. "My good creat- 
ure, you are sinking for want of repose. Mr. Vendale will excuse 

you." , , ^ 

Madame Dor rose, and set forth sideways on her journey from 
the stove to bed. She dropped a stocking. Vendale picked it 
up for her, and opened one of the folding-doors. She advanced 
a step, and dropped three more stockings. Vendale, stooping to 
recover them as before, Obenreizer interfered with profuse apolo- 
gies, and with a warning look at Madame Dor. Madame Dor ac- 
knowledged the look by dropping the whole of the stockings in a 
heap, and then shuffling away panic-stricken from the scene of dis- 
aster. Obenreizer swept up the complete collection fiercely in 
both hands. " Go ! " he cried, giving his prodigious handful a 
preparatory swing in the air. Madame Dor said, "Mon Dieu, 
and vanished into the next room, pursued by a shower of stockings. 
"What must you think, Mr. Vendale," said Obenreizer, closmg 
the door, "of this deplorable intrusion of domestic details? For 
myself, I blush at it. We are beginning the New Year as badly 
as possible ; everything has gone wrong to-night. Be seated, pray 
— and say, what may I off-er you ? Shall we pay our best respects 
to another of your noble English institutions? It is my study 
to be, what you call, jolly. I propose a grog." 



568 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

Vendale declined the grog with all needful respect for that noble 
institution. 

" I wish to speak to you on a subject in which lam deeply in- 
terested," he said. "You must have observed, Mr. Obenreizer, 
that I have, from the first, felt no ordinary admiration for your 
charming niece ? " 

"You are very good. In my niece's name, I thank you." 

"Perhaps you may have noticed, latterly, that my admiration 
for Miss Obenreizer has grown into a tenderer and deeper feel- 
ing ?" 

" Shall we say friendship, Mr. VendaLe ? " 

"Say love — and we shall be nearer to the truth." 

Obenreizer started out of his chair. The faintly discernible 
beat, which was his nearest approach to a change of colour, showed 
itself suddenly in his cheeks. 

"You are Miss Obenreizer's guardian," pursued Vendale. "I 
ask you to confer upon me the greatest of all ftivours — I ask you 
to give me her hand in marriage." 

Obenreizer dropped back into his chair. "Mr. Vendale," he 
said, "you petrify me." 

"I will wait," rejoined Vendale, "until you have recovered 
yourself." 

" One word before I recover myself. You have said nothing 
about this to my niece ? " 

" I have opened my whole heart to your niece. And I have 
reason to hope " 

" What ! " interposed Obenreizer. " You have made a proposal 
to my niece, without first asking for my authority to pay your 
addresses to her 1 " He struck his hand on the table, and lost his 
hold over himself for the first time in Vendale's experience of him. 
" Sir ! " he exclaimed, indignantly, " what sort of conduct is this ? 
As a man of honour, speaking to a man of honour, how can you 
justify it?" 

"I can only justify it as one of our English institutions," said 
Vendale, quietly. "You admire our English institutions. I can't 
honestly tell you, Mr. Obenreizer, that I regret what I have done. 
I can only assure you that I have not acted in the matter with any 
intentional disrespect towards yourself. This said, may I ask you 
to tell me plainly what objection you see to favouring my suit?" 

"I see this immense objection," answered Obenreizer, "that my 
niece and you are not on a social equality together. My niece is 
the daughter of a poor peasant ; and you are the son of a gentle- 
man. You do us an honour," he added, lowering himself again 
gradually to his customary polite level, " which deserves, and has. 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 569 

our most grateful acknowledgments. But the inequality is too 
glaring ; the sacrifice is too great. You English are a proud peoj^le, 
Mr. Vendale. I have observed enough of this country to see that 
such a marriage as you propose would be a scandal here. Not a 
hand would be held out to your peasant-wife ; and all your best 
friends would desert you." 

" One moment," said Vendale, interposing on his side. "I may 
claim, without any great arrogance, to know more of my country- 
people in general, and of my own friends in particular, than you 
do. In the estimation of everybody whose opinion is worth having, 
my wife herself would be the one sufficient justification of my mar- 
riage. If I did not feel certain — observe, I say certain — that I 
am ofi'ering her a position which she can accept without so much 
as the shadow of a humiliation — I would never (cost me what it 
might) have asked her to be my wife. Is there any other obstacle 
that you see 1 Have 'you any personal objection to me ? " 

Obenreizer spread out both his hands in courteous protest. 
" Personal objection ! " he exclaimed. " Dear sir, the bare question 
is painful to me." 

"We are both men of business," pursued Vendale, "and you 
naturally expect me to satisfy you that I have the means of sup- 
porting a wife. I can explain my pecuniary position in two words. 
I inherit from my parents a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. 
In half of that sum I have only a life-interest, to which, if I die, 
leaving a widow, my widow succeeds. If I die, leaving children, 
the money itself is divided among them, as they come of age. The 
other half of my fortune is at my own disposal, and is invested in 
the wine-business. I see my way to greatly improving that busi- 
ness. As it stands at present, I cannot state my return from my 
capital embarked at more than twelve hundred a year. Add the 
yearly value of my life-interest — and the total reaches a present 
annual income of fifteen hundred pounds. I have the fairest pros- 
pect of soon making it more. In the mean time, do you object to 
me on pecuniary grounds ? " 

Driven back to his last entrenchment, Obenreizer rose, and took . 
a turn backwards and forwards in the room. For the moment, he 
was plainly at a loss what to say or do next. 

"Before I answer that last question," he said, after a little close 
consideration with himself, " I beg leave to revert for a moment to 
Miss Marguerite. You said something just now which seemed to 
imply that she returns the sentiment with which you are pleased 
to regard her 1 " 

"I have the inestimable happiness," said Vendale, "of knowing 
that she loves me." 



570 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

Obenreizer stood silent for a moment, with the film over his eyes, 
and the faintly perceptible beat becoming visible again in his cheeks. 

"If you will excuse me for a few minutes," he said, with cere- 
monious politeness, " I should like to have the opportunity of 
speaking to my niece." With those words, he bowed, and quitted 
the room. 

Left by himself, Vendale's thoughts (as a necessary result of 
the interview, thus far) turned instinctively to the consideration 
of Obeureizer's motives. He had put obstacles in the way of 
the courtship; he was now putting obstacles in the way of the 
marriage — a marriage offering advantages which even his in- 
genuity could not dispute. On the face of it, his conduct was 
incomprehensible. What did it mean 1 

Seeking, under the surface, for the answer to that question 
— and remembering that Obenreizer was a man of about his 
own age ; also, that Marguerite was, strictly speaking, his half- 
niece only — Vendale asked himself, with a lover's ready jealousy, 
whether he had a rival to fear, as well as a guardian to conciliate. 
The thought just crossed his mind, and no more. The sense of 
Marguerite's kiss still lingering on his cheek reminded him gently 
that even the jealousy of a moment was now a treason to her. 

On reflection, it seemed most likely that a personal motive of 
another kind might suggest the true explanation of Obeureizer's 
conduct. Marguerite's grace and beauty were precious ornaments 
in that little household. They gave it a special social attraction 
and a special social importance. They armed Obenreizer with a 
certain influence in reserve, which he could always depend upon 
to make his house attractive, and which he might always bring 
more or less to bear on the forwarding of his own private ends. 
Was he the sort of man to resign such advantages as were here 
implied, without obtaining the fullest possible compensation for 
the loss? A connection by marriage mth Vendale offered him 
solid advantages, beyond all doubt. But there were hundreds of 
men in London with far greater power and far wider influence 
than Vendale possessed. Was it possible that this man's ambition 
secretly looked higher than the highest prospects that could be 
offered to him by the alliance now proposed for his niece ? As 
the question passed through Vendale's mind, the man himself 
reappeared — to answer it, or not to answer it, as the event 
might prove. 

A marked change was visible in Obenreizer when he resumed 
his place. His manner was less assured, and there were plain 
traces about his mouth of recent agitation which had not been 
successfully composed. Had he said something, referring either 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 571 

to Vendale or to himself, which had roused Marguerite's spirit, 
and which had placed him, for the first time, face to face with 
a resolute assertion of his niece's will ? It might or might not 
be. This only was certain — he looked like a man who had met 
with a repulse. 

"I have spoken to my niece," he began. "I find, Mr. Vendale, 
that even your influence has not entirely blinded her to the social 
objections to your proposal." 

"May I ask," returned Vendale, "if that is the only result of 
your interview with Miss Obenreizer 1 " 

A momentary flash leapt out through the Obenreizer film. 

"You are master of the situation," he answered, in a tone of 
sardonic submission. "If you insist on my admitting it, I do 
admit it in those words. My niece's will and mine used to be one, 
Mr. Vendale. You have come between us, and her will is now 
yours. In my country, we know when we are beaten, and we 
submit with our best grace. I submit, with my best grace, on 
certain conditions. Let us revert to the statement of your pecu- 
niary position. I have an objection to you, my dear sir — a most 
amazing, a most audacious objection, from a man in my position to 
a man in yours." 

"What is it?" 

"You have honoured me by making a proposal for my niece's 
hand. For the present (with best thanks and respects), I beg to 
decline it." 

"Why?" 

" Because you are not rich enough." 

The objection, as the speaker had foreseen, took Vendale com- 
pletely by surprise. For the moment he was speechless. 

"Your income is fifteen hundred a year," pursued Obenreizer. 
"In my miserable country I should fall on my knees before your 
income, and say, ' What a princely fortune ! ' In wealthy Eng- 
land, I sit as I am, and say, 'A modest independence, dear sir; 
nothing more. Enough, perhaps, for a wife in your own rank of 
life, who had no social prejudices to conquer. Not more than half 
enough for a wife who is a meanly born foreigner, and who has all 
your social prejudices against her.' Sir ! if my niece is ever to 
marry you, she will have what you call uphill work of it in 
taking her place at starting. Yes, yes; this is not your view, 
but it remains, immovably remains, my view for all that. For 
my niece's sake, I claim that this uphill work shall be made as 
smooth as possii)le. Whatever material advantages she can have 
to help her, ought, in common justice, to be hers. Now, tell me, 
Mr. Vendale, on your fifteen hundred a year can your wife have 



572 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

a house in a fashionable quarter, a footman to open her door, 
butler to wait at her table, and a carriage and horses to dri 
about in? I see the answer in your face — your face says, jNu. 
Very good. Tell me one more thing, and I have done. Take the 
mass of your educated, accomplished, and lovely countrywomen, 
is it, or is it not, the fact that a lady who has a house in a 
fashionable quarter, a footman to open her door, a butler to wait 
at her table, and a carriage and horses to drive about in, is a 
lady who has gained four steps, in female estimation, at startinii; ? 
Yes? or No?" 

" Come to the point," said Vendale. "You view this question 
as a question of terms. What are your terms ? " 

" The lowest terms, dear sir, on which you can provide your wife 
with those four steps at starting. Double your present income — 
the most rigid economy cannot do it in England on less. You 
said just now that you expected greatly to increase the value of 
your business. To work — and increase it ! I am a good devil 
after all ! On the day when you satisfy me, by plain proofs, that 
your income has risen to three thousand a year, ask me for my 
niece's hand, and it is yours." 

" May I inquire if you have mentioned this arrangement to Miss 
Obenreizer ? " 

" Certainly. She has a last little morsel of regard still left for 
me, Mr. Vendale, which is not yours yet; and s]^e accepts my 
terms. In other words, she submits to be guided by her guar- 
dian's regard for her welfare, and by her guardian's superior knowl- 
edge of the world," He threw himself back in his chair, in firm 
reliance on his position, and in full possession of his excellent 
temper. 

Any open assertion of his own interests, in the situation in 
which Vendale was now placed, seemed to be (for the present at 
least) hopeless. He found himself literally left with no ground 
to stand on. Whether Obenreizer's objections were the genuine 
product of Obenreizer's own view of the case, or whether he was 
simply delaying the marriage in the hope of ultimately breaking 
it off altogether — in either of these events, any present resistance 
on Vendale's part would be equally useless. There was no help 
for it but to yield, making the best terms that he could on his own 
side, 

" I protest against the conditions you impose on me," he 
began, 

"Naturally," said Obenreizer; "I dare say I should protest, 
myself, in your place," 

" Say, however," pursued Vendale, " that I accept your terms. 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 573 

In that case, I must be permitted to make two stipulations on 
my part. In the first place, I shaU expect to be allowed to see 
your niece." 

" Aha ! to see my niece ? and to make her in as great a hurry 
to be married as you are yourself 1 Suppose I say. No 1 you 
would see her perhaps without my permission?" 

"Decidedly!" 

" How delightfully frank ! How exquisitely English ! You 
shall see her, Mr. Veudale, on certain days, which we will appoint 
together. What next ? " 

"Your objection to my income," proceeded Yefidale, "has taken 
me completely by surprise. I wish to be assured against any 
repetition of that surprise. Your present views of my qualifica- 
tion for marriage require me to have an income of three thousand 
a year. Can I be certain, in the future, as your experience of 
England enlarges, that your estimate will rise no higher ? " 

"In plain English," said Obenreizer, "you doubt my word?" 

"Do you purpose to take m7/ word for it when I inform you 
that I have doubled my income ? " asked Yendale. " If my mem- 
ory does not deceive me, you stipulated, a minute since, for plain 
proofs ? " 

" Well played, Mr. Yendale ! You combine the foreign quick- 
ness with the English solidity. Accept my best congratulations. 
Accept, also, my written guarantee." 

He rose ; seated himself at a writing-desk at a side-table, 
wrote a few lines, and presented them to Yendale with a low bow. 
The engagement was perfectly explicit, and was signed and dated 
with scrupulous care. 

"Are you satisfied with your guarantee?" 

"I am satisfied." 

" Charmed to hear it, I am sure. W^e have had our little skir- 
mish — we have really been wonderfully clever on both sides. For 
the present our affairs are settled. I bear no malice. You 
bear no malice. Come, Mr. Yendale, a good English shake 
hands." 

Yendale gave his hand, a little bewildered by Obenreizer's sud- 
den transitions from one humour to another. 

" When may I expect to see Miss Obenreizer again ? " he asked, 
as he rose to go. 

"Honour me with a visit to-morrow," said Obenreizer, "and we 
will settle it then. Do have a grog before you go ! No? Well! 
well ! we will reserve the grog till you have your three thousand a 
year, and are ready to be married. Aha ! When will that be ? " 

" I made an estimate, some months since, of the capacities of 



674 NO THOROUGHFAKE. 

my business," said Vendale. "If that estimate is correct, I shall 
double my present income " 

"And be married ! " added Obenreizer. 

"And be married," repeated Vendale, "within a year from this 
time. Good night." 

VENDALE MAKES MISCHIEF. 

When Vendale entered his office the next morning, the dull 
commercial routine at Cripple Corner met him with a new face. 
Marguerite had an interest in it now ! The whole machinery 
which Wilding's death had set in motion, to realise the value of 
the business — the balancing of ledgers, the estimating of debts, 
the taking of stock, and the rest of it — was now transformed into 
machinery which indicated the chances for and against a speedy 
marriage. After looking over results, as presented by his account- 
ant, and checking additions and subtractions, as rendered by the 
clerks, Vendale turned his attention to the stock-taking department 
next, and sent a message to the cellars, desiring to see the report. 

The Cellarman's appearance, the moment he put his head in at 
the door of his master's private room, suggested that something 
very extraordinary must have happened that morning. There was 
an approach to alacrity in Joey Ladle's movements ! There was 
something which actually simulated cheerfulness in Joey Ladle's 
face ! 

" What's the matter ? " asked Vendale. " Anything wrong 1 " 

" I should wish to mention one thing," answered Joey. " Young 
Mr. Vendale, I have never set myself up for a prophet." 

" Who ever said you did 1 " 

"No prophet, as far as I've heard tell of that profession," pro- 
ceeded Joey, "ever lived principally underground. No prophet, 
whatever else he might take in at the pores, ever took in wine 
from morning to night, for a number of years together. When I 
said to young Master Wilding, respecting his changing the name 
of the firm, that one of these days he might find he'd changed the 
luck of the firm — did I put myself forward as a prophet 1 No, I 
didn't. Has what I said to him come true ? Yes, it has. In the 
time of Pebbleson Nephew, Young Mr. Vendale, no such thing was 
ever known as a mistake made in a consignment delivered at these 
doors. There's a mistake been made now. Please to remark that 
it happened before Miss Margaret came here. For which reason it 
don't go against what I've said respecting Miss Margaret singing 
round the luck. Read that, sir," concluded Joey, pointing atten- 
tion to a special passage in the report, with a forefinger which 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 675 

appeared to be in process of taking in through the pores nothing 
more remarkable than dirt. " It's foreign to my nature to crow 
over the house I serve, but I feel it a kind of a solemn duty to ask 
you to read that." 

Vendale read as follows : " Note, respecting the Swiss cham- 
pagne. An irregularity has been discovered in the last consign- 
ment received from the firm of Defresnier and Co." Vendale 
stopped, and referred to a memorandum-book by his side. " That 
was in Mr. Wilding's time," he said. " The vintage was a partic- 
ularly good one, and he took the whole of it. The Swiss cham- 
pagne has done very w^ell, hasn't it ? " 

" I don't say it's done badly," answered the Cellarman. " It may 
have got sick in our customers' bins, or it ma/ have bust in our 
customers' hands. But I don't say it's done badly with us.'^ 

Vendale resumed the reading of the note : " We find the number 
of the cases to be quite correct by the books. But six of them, 
which present a slight diff'erence from the rest in the brand, have 
been opened, and have been found to contain a red wine instead 
of champagne. The similarity in the brands, we suppose, caused 
a mistake to be made in sending the consignment from Neuchatel. 
The error has not been found to extend beyond six cases." 

" Is that all ! " exclaimed Vendale, tossing the note away from 
him. 

Joey Ladle's eye followed the flying morsel of paper drearily. 

"I'm glad to see you take it easy, sir," he said. "Whatever 
happens, it will be always a comfort to you to remember that you 
took it easy at first. Sometimes one mistake leads to another. 
A man drops a bit of orange-peel on the pavement by mistake, 
and another man treads on it by mistake, and there's a job at the 
hospital, and a party crippled for life. I'm glad you take it easy, 
sir. In Pebbleson Nephew's time we shouldn't have taken it easy 
till we had seen the end of it. Without desiring to crow over 
the house. Young Mr. Vendale, I wish you well through it. No 
offence, sir," said the Cellarman, opening the door to go out, and 
looking in again ominously before he shut it. " I'm muddled and 
molloncolly, I grant you. But I'm an old servant of Pebbleson 
Nephew, and I wish you well through them six cases of red wine." 

Left by himself, Vendale laughed, and took up his pen. "I 
may as well send a line to Defresnier and Company," he thought, 
" before I forget it." He wrote at once in these terms : 

" Dear Sirs. We are taking stock, and a trifling mistake has 
been discovered in the last consignment of champagne sent by your 
house to ours. Six of the cases contain red wine — which we 



576 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

hereby return to you. The matter can easily be set right, either 
by your sending us six cases of the champagne, if they can be pro- 
duced, or, if not, by your crediting us with the value of six cases 
on the amount last paid (five hundred pounds) by our firm to yours. 
Your faithful servants, 

"Wilding and Co." 

This letter despatched to the post, the subject dropped at once 
out of Yendale's mind. He had other and far more interesting 
matters to think of. Later in the day he paid the visit to Oben- 
reizer which had been agreed on between them. Certain eveniugs 
in the week were set apart which he was privileged to spend with 
Marguerite — always, however, in the presence of a third person. 
On this stipulation Obenreizer politely but positively insisted. 
The one concession he made was to give Vendale his choice of who 
the third person should be. Confiding in past experience, his 
choice fell unhesitatingly upon the excellent woman who mended 
Obenreizer's stockings. On hearing of the responsibility entrusted 
to her, Madame Dor's intellectual nature burst suddenly into a 
new stage of development. She waited till Obenreizer's eye was 
oft' her — and then she looked at Vendale and dimly winked.' 

The time passed — the happy evenings with Marguerite came 
and went. It was the tenth morning since Vendale had written 
to the Swiss firm, when the answer appeared on his desk, with 
the other letters of the day : 

" Dear Sirs. We beg to oS'er our excuses for the little mistake 
which has happened. At the same time, we regret to add that 
the statement of our error, with which you have favoured us, has 
led to a very unexpected discovery. The afiair is a most serious 
one for you and for us. The particulars are as follows : 

" Having no more champagne of the vintage last sent to you, 
we made arrangements to credit your firm with the value of the 
six cases, as suggested by yourself. On taking this step, certain 
forms observed in our mode of doing business necessitated a refer- 
ence to our bankers' book, as well as to our ledger. The result is 
a moral certainty that no such remittance as you mention can 
have reached our house, and a literal certainty that no such remit- 
tance has been paid to our account at the bank. 

"It is needless, at this stage of the proceedings, to trouble you 
with details. The money has unquestionably been stolen in the 
course of its transit from you to us. Certain peculiarities which 
we observe, relating to the manner in which the fraud has been 
perpetrated, lead us to conclude that the thief may have calculated 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 577 

on being able to pay the missing sum to our bankers, before an 
inevitable discovery followed the annual striking of our balance. 
This would not have happened, in the usual course, for another 
three months. During that period, but for your letter, we might 
have remained perfectly unconscious of the robbery that has been 
committed. 

"We mention this last circumstance, as it may help to show 
you that we have to do, in this case, with no ordinary thief. Thus 
far we have not even a suspicion of who that thief is. But we 
believe you will assist us in making some advance towards discov- 
ery, by examining the receipt (forged, of course) which has no 
doubt purported to come to you from our house. Be pleased to 
look and see whether it is a receipt entirely in manuscript, or 
whether it is a numbered and printed form which merely requires 
the filling in of the amount. The settlement of this apparently 
trivial question is, we assure you, a matter of vital importance. 
Anxiously awaiting your reply, we remain, with high esteem and 
consideration, 

"Defresnier&C^^" 

Vendale laid the letter on his desk, and waited a moment to 
steady his mind under the shock that had fallen on it. At the 
time of all others when it was most important to him to increase 
the value of his business, that business was threatened with a 
loss of five hundred pounds. He thought of Marguerite, as he 
took the key from his pocket and opened the iron chamber 
in the wall in which the books and papers of the firm were 
kept. 

He was still in the chamber, searching for the forged receipt, 
when he was startled by a voice speaking close behind him. 

"A thousand pardons," said the voice ; " I am afraid I disturb 
you." 

He turned, and found himself face to face with Marguerite's 
guardian. 

"I have called," pursued Obenreizer, "to know if I can be of 
any use. Business of my own takes me away for some days to 
Manchester and Liverpool. Can I combine any business of yours 
with it ? I am entirely at your disposal, in the character of com- 
mercial traveller for the firm of Wilding and Co." 

"Excuse me for one moment," said Vendale; "I will speak to 
you directly." He turned round again, and continued his seaich 
among the papers. " You come at a time when friendly offers are 
more than usually precious to me," he resumed. " I have had 
very bad news this morning from Neuchatel." 

2p 



578 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

"Bad news!" exclaimed Obenreizer. "From Defresnier and 
Company ? " 

" Yes. A remittance we sent to them has been stolen. I am 
threatened with a loss of five hundred pounds. What's that ? " 

Turning sharply, and looking into the room for the second time, 
Vendale discovered his envelope-case overthrown on the floor, and 
Obenreizer on his knees picking up the contents. 

" All my awkwardness ! " said Obenreizer. " This dreadful news 

of yours startled me ; I stepped back " He became too deeply 

interested in collecting the scattered envelopes to finish the sen- , 
tence. 

" Don't trouble yourself," said Vendale. "The clerk will pick 
the things up." 

" This dreadful news ! " repeated Obenreizer, persisting in col- 
lecting the envelopes. " This dreadful news ! " 

"If you will read the letter," said Vendale, "you will find I 
have exaggerated nothing. There it is, open on my desk." 

He resumed his search, and in a moment more discovered the 
forged receipt. It was on the numbered and printed form, 
described by the Swiss firm. Vendale made a memorandum of 
the number and the date. Having replaced the receipt and locked 
up the iron chamber, he had leisure to notice Obenreizer, reading 
the letter in the recess of a window at the far end of the room. 

"Come to the fire," said Vendale. "You look perished with 
the cold out there. I will ring for some more coals." 

Obenreizer rose, and came slowly back to the desk. "Mar- 
guerite will be as sorry to hear of this as I am," he said, kindly. 
" What do you mean to do ? " 

"I am in the hands of Defresnier and Company," answered 
Vendale. "In my total ignorance of the circumstances, I can 
only do what they recommend. The receipt which I have just 
found, turns out to be the numbered and printed form. They 
seem to attach some special importance to its discovery. You have 
had experience, when you were in the Swiss house, of their way of 
doing business. Can you guess what object they have in view ? " 

Obenreizer offered a suggestion. 

" Suppose I examine the receipt ? " he said. 

" Are you ill ? " asked Vendale, startled by the change in his face, 
which now showed itself plainly for the first time. " Pray go to 
the fire. You seem to be shivering — I hope you are not going 
to be ill?" 

" Not I ! " said Obenreizer. " Perhaps I have caught cold. 
Your English climate might have spared an admirer of your 
English institutions. Let me look at the receipt." 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 579 

Vendale opened the iron chamber. Obenreizer took a chair, and 
drew it close to the fire. He held both hands over the flames. 
"Let me look at the receipt," he repeated, eagerly, as Vendale 
reappeared with the paper in his hand. At the same moment a 
porter entered the room with a fresh supply of coals. Vendale 
told him to make a good fire. The man obeyed the order with a 
disastrous alacrity. As he stepped forward and raised the scuttle, 
his foot caught in a fold of the rug, and he discharged his entire 
cargo of coals into the grate. The result was an instant smother- 
ing of the flame, and the production of a stream of yellow smoke, 
without a visible morsel of fire to account for it. 

" Imbecile ! " whispered Obenreizer to himsell^ with a look at the 
man which the man remembered for many a long day afterwards. 

" Will you come into the clerks' room 1 " asked Vendale. " They 
have a stove there." 

"No, no. No matter." 

Vendale handed him the receipt. Obenreizer's interest in exam- 
ining it appeared to have been quenched as suddenly and as effect- 
ually as the fire itself. He just glanced over the document, and 
said, "No ; I don't understand it ! I am sorry to be of no use." 

"I will write to Neuchatel by to-night's post," said Vendale, 
putting away the receipt for the second time. " We must wait, 
and see what comes of it." 

" By to-night's post," repeated Obenreizer. " Let me see. You 
will get the answer in eight or nine days' time. I shall be back 
before that. If I can be of any service, as commercial traveller, 
perhaps you will let me know between this and then. You will 
send me written instructions 1 My best thanks. I shall be most 
anxious for your answer from Neuchatel. Who knows ? It may 
be a mistake, my dear friend, after all. Courage ! courage ! cour- 
age!" He had entered the room with no appearance of being 
pressed for time. He now snatched up his hat, and took his leave 
with the air of a man who had not another moment to lose. 

Left by himself, Vendale took a turn thoughtfully in the room. 

His previous impression of Obenreizer was shaken by what he 
had heard and seen at the interview which had just taken place. 
He was disposed, for the first time, to doubt whether, in this case, 
he had not been a little hasty and hard in his judgment on another 
man. Obenreizer's surprise and regret, on hearing the news from 
Neuchatel, bore the plainest marks of being honestly felt — not 
poUtely assumed for the occasion. With troubles of his^ own to 
encounter, suffering, to all appearance, from the first msidious 
attack of a serious illness, he had looked and spoken like a man 
who really deplored the disaster that had fallen on his friend. 



680 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

Hitherto," Veiiclale had tried vainly to alter his first opinion of 
Marguerite's guardian, for Marguerite's sake. All the generous 
instincts in his nature now combined together and shook the evi- 
dence which had seemed unanswerable up to this time. " Who 
knows ? " he thought, " I may have read that man's face wrongly, 
after all." 

The time passed — the happy evenings with Marguerite came ' 
and went. It was again the tenth morning since Vendale had 
written to the Swiss firm ; and again the answer appeared on his 
desk with the other letters of the day. 

"Dear Sir. My senior partner, M. Defresnier, has been called 
away, by urgent business, to Milan, In his absence (and with liis 
full concurrence and authority), I now write you again on the sub- 
ject of the missing five hundred pounds. 

" Your discovery that the forged receipt is executed upon one of 
our numbered and printed forms has caused inexpressible surprise 
and distress to my partner and to myself. At the time when your 
remittance was stolen, but three keys were in existence opening the 
strong box in which our receipt-forms are invariably kept. My 
partner had one key ; I had the other. The third was in the pos- 
session of a gentleman who, at that period, occupied a position of 
trust in our house. We should as soon have thought of suspecting 
one of ourselves as of suspecting this person. Suspicion now points 
at him, nevertheless. I cannot prevail on myself to inform you 
who the person is, so long as there is the shadow of a chance that 
he may come innocently out of the inquiry which must now be 
instituted. Forgive my silence ; the motive of it is good. 

" The form our investigation must now take is simple enough. 
The handwriting on your receipt must be compared, by competent 
persons whom we have at our disposal, with certain specimens of 
handwriting in our possession. I cannot send you the specimens, 
for business reasons, which, when you hear them, you are sure to 
approve. I must beg you to send me the receipt to Neuchatel 
— and, in making this request, I must accompany it by a word of 
necessaiy warning. 

" If the -person, at whom suspicion now points, really proves to 
be the person who has committed this forgery and theft, I have 
reason to fear that circumstances may have already put him on his 
guard. The only evidence against him is the evidence in your 
hands, and he will move heaven and earth to obtain and destroy it. 
I strongly urge you not to trust the receipt to the post. Send it 
to me, without loss of time, by a private hand, and choose nobody 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 581 

for your messenger but a person long established in your own em- 
ployment, accustomed to travelling, capable of speaking French ; 
a man of courage, a man of honesty, and, above all things, a man 
who can be trusted to let no stranger scrape acquaintance with him 
on the route. Tell no one — absolutely no one — but your messen- 
ger of the turn this matter has now taken. The safe transit of the 
receipt may depend on your interpreting literally the advice which 
I give you at the end of this letter. 

"I have only to add that every possible saving of time is now 
of the last importance. More than one of our receipt-forms is miss- 
ing — and it is impossible to say what new frauds may not be 
committed, if we fail to lay our hands on the thief. 

"Your faithful servant, 

" Roll AND, 
" (Signing for Defresnier and C"^)." 

Who was the suspected man ? In Vendale's position, it seemed 
useless to inquire. 

Who was to be sent to Neuchatel with the receipt ? Men of 
courage and men of honesty were to be had at Cripple Corner for 
the asking. But where was the man who was accustomed to 
foreign travelling, who could speak the French language, and who 
could be really relied on to let no stranger scrape acquaintance 
with him on his route? There was but one man at hand who 
combined all those requisites in his own person, and that man was 
Vendale himself. 

It was a sacrifice to leave his business ; it was a greater sacrifice 
to leave Marguerite. But a matter of five hundred pounds was 
involved in the pending inquiry; and a literal interpretation of 
M. Holland's advice was insisted on in terms which there was no 
trifling with. The more Vendale thought of it, the more plainly 
the necessity faced him, and said, " Go ! " 

As he locked up the letter with the receipt, the association of 
ideas reminded him of Obenreizer. A guess at the identity of the 
suspected man looked more possible now. Obenreizer might 
know. 

The thought had barely passed through his mind, when the 
door opened, and Obenreizer entered the room. 

"They told me at Soho-square you were expected back last 
night," said Vendale, greeting him. " Have you done well in the 
country 1 Are you better ? " 

A thousand thanks. Obenreizer had done admirably well; 
Obenreizer was infinitely better. And now, what news? Any 
letter from Neuchatel? 



582 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

"A very strange letter," answered Vendale. "The matter has 
taken a new turn, and the letter insists — without excepting any- 
body — on my keeping our next proceedings a profound secret." 

" Without excepting anybody 1 " repeated Obeureizer. As he 
said the words, he walked away again, thoughtfully, to the window 
at the other end of the room, looked out for a moment, and sud- 
denly came back to Vendale. " Surely they must have forgot- 
ten?" he resumed, "or they would have excepted me.?" 

"It is Monsieur Holland who writes," said Vendale. "And, as 
you say, he must certainly have forgotten. That view of the mat- 
ter quite escaped me. I was just wishing I had you to consult, 
when you came into the room. And here I am tied by a formal 
prohibition, whicli cannot possibly have been intended to include 
you. How very annoying ! " 

Obenreizer's filmy eyes fixed on Vendale attentively. 

" Perhaps it is more than annoying ! " he said. " I came this 
morning not only to hear the news, but to offer myself as messen- 
ger, negotiator — what you will. Would you believe it ? I have 
letters which oblige me to go to Switzerland immediately. Mes- 
sages, documents, anything — I could have taken them all to 
Defresnier and RoUaud for you." 

"You are the very man I wanted," returned Vendale. "I had 
decided, most unwillingly, on going to Neuchatel myself, not five 
minutes since, because I could find no one here capable of taking 
my place. Let me look at the letter again." 

He opened the strong room to get at the letter. Obenreizer, 
after first glancing round him to make sure that they were alone, 
followed a step or two and waited, measuring Vendale with his 
eye. Vendale was the tallest man, and unmistakably the strong- 
est man also of the two. Obenreizer turned away, and warmed 
himself at the fire. 

Meanwhile, Vendale read the last paragraph in the letter for 
the third time. There was the plain warning — there w^as the 
closing sentence, which insisted on a literal interpretation of it. 
The hand, which was leading Vendale in the dark, led him on that 
condition only. A large sum was at stake : a terrible suspicion 
remained to be verified. If he acted on his own responsibility, 
and if anything happened to defeat the object in view, who would 
be blamed ? As a man of business, Vendale had but one course to 
follow. He locked the letter up again. 

"It is most annoying," he said to Obenreizer — "it is a piece 
of forgetfulness on Monsieur Rolland's part which puts me to 
serious inconvenience, and places me in an absurdly false position 
towards you. What am I to do ? I am acting in a very serious 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 583 

natter, and acting entirely in the dark. I have no choice but 
:o be guided, not by the spirit, but by the letter of my instruc- 
ions. You understand me, I am sure ? You know, if I had not 
Deen fettered in this way, how gladly I should have accepted your 
services ? " 

" Say no more ! " returned Obenreizer. " In your place I 
ihould have done the same. My good friend, I take no offence. I 
;hank you for your compliment. We shall be travelling compan- 
ons, at any rate," added Obenreizer. " You go, as I go, at once 1 " 
" At once. I must speak to Marguerite first, of course ! " 
" Surely ! surely ! Speak to her this evening. " Come, and pick 
ne up on the way to the station. We go together by the mail 
;rain to-night ? " 
" By the mail train to-night." 

It was later than Vendale had anticipated when he drove up 
;o the house in Soho-square. Business difficulties, occasioned by 
lis sudden departure, had presented themselves by dozens. A 
jruelly large share of the time w^hich he had hoped to devote to 
Marguerite had been claimed by duties at his office which it was 
mpossible to neglect. 

To his surprise and delight, she was alone in the drawing-room 
when he entered it. 

"We have only a few minutes, George," she said. "But 
Madame Dor has been good to me — and we can have those 
few minutes alone." She threw her arms round his neck, and 
whispered eagerly, "Have you done anything to oflFend Mr. 
Obenreizer ? " 

" I ! " exclaimed Vendale, in amazement. 

" Hush ! " she said, " I want to whisper it. You know the 
little photograph I have got of you. This afternoon it happened 
to be on the chimney-piece. He took it up and looked at it — 
and I saw his face in the glass. I know you have offended him ! 
He is merciless; he is revengeful; he is as secret as the grave. 
Don't go with him, George — don't go with him ! " 

"My own love," returned Vendale, "you are letting your fancy 
frighten you ! Obenreizer and I were never better friends than 
we are at this moment." 

Before a word more could be said, the sudden movement of 
some ponderous body shook the floor of the next room. The 
shock was followed by the appearance of Madame Dor. " Oben- 
reizer ! " exclaimed this excellent person in a whisper, and plumped 
down instantly in her regular place by the stove. 

Obenreizer came in with a courier's bag strapped over his 
shoulder. 



584 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

"Are you ready?" he asked, addressing Vendale, "Can I 
take anything for you? You have no travelling-bag. I have 
got one. Here is the compartment for papers, open at your 
service." 

" Thank you," said Yendale. " I have only one paper of 
importance with me ; and that paper I am bound to take charge 
of myself. Here it is," he added, touching the breast-pocket of 
his coat, "and here it must remain till we get to Neuchatel." 

As he said those words. Marguerite's hand caught his, and 
pressed it significantly. She was looking towards Obenreizer. 
Before Vendale could look, in his turn, Obenreizer had wheeled 
round, and was taking leave of Madame Dor. 

" Adieu, my charming niece ! " he said, turning to Marguerite 
next. " En route, my friend, for Neuchatel ! " He tapped Ven- 
dale lightly over the breast-pocket of his coat, and led the way 
to the door. 

Vendale's last look was for Marguerite. Marguerite's last words 
to him were, " Don't go ! " 



Act III. 

IN THE VALLEY. 

It was about the middle of the month of February when Vendale 
and Obenreizer set forth on their expedition. The winter being a 
hard one, the time was bad for travellers. So bad was it that 
these two travellers, coming to Strasbourg, found its great inns 
almost empty. And even the few people they did encounter in 
that city, who had started from England or from Paris on business 
journeys towards the interior of Switzerland, were turning back. 

Many of the railroads in Switzerland that tourists pass easily 
enough now, were almost or quite impracticable then. Some were 
not begun ; more were not completed. On such as were open, 
there were still large gaps of old road where communication in the 
winter season was often stopped ; on others, there were weak 
points where the new work was not safe, either under conditions of 
severe frost, or of rapid thaw. The running of trains on this last 
class was not to be counted on in the worst time of the year, was 
contingent upon weather, or was wholly abandoned through the 
months considered the most dangerous. 

At Strasbourg there were more travellers' stories afloat, respect- 
ing the difficulties of the way further on, than there were travellers 
to relate them. Many of these tales were as wild as usual ; but 
the more modestly marvellous did derive some colour from the 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 585 

circumstance that people were indisputably turning back. How- 
ever, as the road to Basle was open, Vendale's resolution to push 
on was in no wise disturbed. Obenreizer's resolution was neces- 
sarily Vendale's, seeing that he stood at bay thus desperately: — 
He must be ruined, or must destroy the evidence that Vendale 
carried about him, even if he destroyed Vendale with it. 

The state of mind of each of these two fellow-travellers towards 
the other was this. Obenreizer, encircled by impending ruin 
through Vendale's quickness of action, and seeing the circle 
narrowed every hour by Vendale's energy, hated him with the 
animosity of a fierce cunning lower animal. H'e had always had 
instinctive movements in his breast against him ; perhaps, because 
of that old sore of gentleman and peasant; perhaps, because of 
the openness of his nature ; perhaps, because of his better looks ; 
perhaps, because of his success with Marguerite ; perhaps, on all 
those grounds, the two last not the least. And now he saw in 
him, besides, the hunter who was tracking him down. Vendale, on 
the other hand, always contending generously against his first 
vague mistrust, now felt bound to contend against it more than 
ever : reminding himself, "He is Marguerite's guardian. We are 
on perfectly friendly terms ; he is my companion of his own pro- 
posal, and can have no interested motive in sharing this undesirable 
journey." To which pleas in behalf of Obenreizer, chance added 
one consideration more, when they came to Basle, after a journey 
of more than twice the average duration. 

They had had a late dinner, and were alone in an inn room 
there, overhanging the Rhine : at that place rapid and deep, 
swollen and loud. Vendale lounged upon a couch, and Obenrei- 
zer walked to and fro : now, stopping at the window, looking at 
the crooked reflections of the town lights in the dark water (and 
peradventure thinking, " If I could fling him into it ! ") ; now, 
resuming his walk with his eyes upon the floor. 

" Where shall I rob him, if I can ? Where shall I murder him, 
if I must?" So, as he paced the room, ran the river, ran the 
river, ran the river. 

The burden seemed to him at last, to be growing so plain that 
he stopped ; thinking it as well to suggest another burden to his 
companion. 

"The Rhine sounds to-night," he said with a smile, "like the 
old waterfall at home. That waterfall which my mother showed 
to travellers (I told you of it once). The sound of it changed with 
the weather, as does the sound of all falling waters and flowing 
waters. When I was pupil of the watch-maker, I remembered it 
as sometimes saying to me for whole days, 'Who are you, my 



686 NO THOKOUGHFARE. 

little wretch ? Who are you, my little wretch ? ' I remembered it 
as saying, other times, when its sound was hollow, and storm was 
coming up the Pass : ' Boom, boom, boom. Beat him, beat him, 
beat him.' Like my mother enraged — if she was my mother." 

" If she was ? " said Vendale, gradually changing his attitude to 
a sitting one. "If she was 1 Why do you say ' if ' ? " 

" What do I know ? " replied the other negligently, throwing up 
his hands and letting them fall as they would. "What would 
you have ? I am so obscurely born, that how can I say ? I was 
very young, and all the rest of the family were men and women, 
and my so-called parents were old. Anything is possible of a case 
like that ? " 

"Did you ever doubt ?" 

"I told you once, I doubt the marriage of those two," he 
replied, throwing up his hands again, as if he were throwing the 
unprofitable subject away. " But here I am in Creation. / come 
of no fine family. What does it matter ? " 

"At least you are Swiss," said Vendale, after following him with 
his eyes to and fro. 

"How do I know?" he retorted abruptly, and stopping to look 
back over his shoulder. "I say to you, at least you are English. 
How do you know ? " 

" By what I have been told from infancy." 

" Ah ! I know of myself that way." 

"And," added Vendale, pursuing the thought that he could not 
drive back, " by my earliest recollections." 

" I also. I know of myself that way — if that way satisfies." 

" Does it not satisfy you ? " 

"It must. There is nothing like 'it must' in this little world. 
It must. Two short words those, but stronger than long proof or 
reasoning." 

"You and poor Wilding were born in the same year. You 
were nearly of an age," said Vendale, again thoughtfully looking 
after him as he resumed his pacing up and down. 

"Yes. Very nearly." 

Could Obenreizer be the missing man? In the unknown asso- 
ciations of things, was there a subtler meaning than he himself 
thought, in that theory so often on his lips about the smallness of 
the world? Had the Swiss letter presenting him, followed so 
close on Mrs. Goldstraw's revelation concerning the infant who 
had been taken away to Switzerland, because he was that infant 
grown a man ? In a world where so many depths lie unsounded, 
it might be. The chances, or the laws — call them either — thnt 
had wrought out the revival of Vendale's own acquaintance with 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 587 

Obenreizer, and had ripened it into intimacy, and had brought 
them here together this present winter night, were hardly less 
curious; while read by such a light, they were seen to cohere 
towards the furtherance of a continuous and an intelligible purpose. 

Vendale's awakened thoughts ran high while his eyes musingly 
followed Obenreizer pacing up and down the room, the river ever 
running to the tune : "Where shall I rob him, if I can? Where 
shall I murder him, if I must ? " The secret of his dead friend 
was in no hazard from Vendale's lips ; but just as his friend had 
died of its weight, so did he in his lighter succession feel the bur- 
den of the trust, and the obligation to follow any clue, however 
obscure. He rapidly asked himself, would he like this man to be 
the real Wilding ? No. Argue down his mistrust as he might, 
he was unwilling to put such a substitute in the place of his late 
guileless, outspoken, childlike partner. He rapidly asked himself, 
would he like this man to be rich 1 No. He had more power 
than enough over Marguerite as it was, and wealth might invest 
him with more. Would he like this man to be Marguerite's 
guardian, and yet proved to stand in no degree of relationship 
towards her, however disconnected and distant 1 No. But these 
were not considerations to come between him and fidelity to the 
dead. Let him see to it that they passed him with no other 
notice than the knowledge that they had passed him, and left him 
bent on the discharge of a solemn duty. And he did see to it, so 
soon that he followed his companion with ungrudging eyes, while 
he still paced the room ; that companion, whom he supposed to be 
moodily reflecting on his own birth, and not on another man's — 
least of all what man's — violent Death, 

The road in advance from Basle to Neuchatel was better than 
had been represented. The latest weather had done it good. 
Drivers, both of horses and mules, had come in that evening after 
dark, and had reported nothing more difficult to be overcome than 
trials of patience, harness, wheels, axles, and whipcord. A bar- 
gain was soon struck for a carriage and horses, to take them on in 
the morning, and to start before daylight. 

"Do you lock your door at night when travelling?" asked Oben- 
reizer, standing warming his hands by the wood fire in Vendale's 
chamber, before going to his own. 

" Not I. I sleep too soundly." 

"You are so sound a sleeper?" he retorted, with an admiring 
look. "What a blessing!" 

" Anything but a blessing to the rest of the house," rejoined 
Vendale, " if I had to be knocked up in the morning from the out- 
side of my bedroom door." 



588 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

"I, too," said Obenreizer, -'leave open my room. But let me 
advise you, as a Swiss who knows : always, when you travel in 
my country, put your papers — and, of course, your money — 
under your pillow. Always the same place." 

" You are not complimentary to your countrymen," laughed 
Vendale. 

"My countrymen," said Obenreizer, with that light touch of 
his friend's elbows by way of Good Night and benediction, "I 
suppose, are like the majority of men. And the majority of men 
will take what they can get. Adieu ! At four in the morning." 

"Adieu! At four." 

Left to himself, Vendale raked the logs together, sprinkled over 
them the white wood-ashes lying on the hearth, and sat down to 
compose his thoughts. But they still ran high on their latest 
theme, and the running of the river tended to agitate rather than 
to quiet them. As he sat thinking, what little disposition he had 
had to sleep, departed. He felt it hopeless to lie down yet, and 
sat dressed by the fire. Marguerite, Wilding, Obenreizer, the busi- 
ness he was then upon, and a thousand hopes and doubts that had 
nothing to do with it, occupied his mind at once. Everything 
seemed to have power over him, but slumber. The departed 
disposition to sleep kept far away. 

He had sat for a long time thinking, on the hearth, when his 
candle burned down, and its light • went out. It was of little 
moment; there was light enough in the fire. He changed his 
attitude, and, leaning his arm on the chair-back, and his chin upon 
that hand, sat thinking still. 

But he sat between the fire and the bed, and, as the fire flickered 
in the play of air from the fast-flowing river, his enlarged shadow 
fluttered on the white wall by the bedside. His attitude gave it 
an air, half of mourning, and half of bending over the bed implor- 
ing. His eyes were observant of it, when he became troubled by 
the disagi'eeable fancy that it was like Wilding's shadow, and not 
his own. 

A slight change of place would cause it to disappear. He made 
the change, and the apparition of his disturbed fancy vanished. 
He now sat in the shade of a little nook beside the fire, and the 
door of the room was before him. 

It had a long cumbrous iron latch. He saw the latch slowly 
and softly rise. The door opened a very little, and came to again : 
as though only the air had moved it. But he saw that the latch 
was out of the hasp. 

The door opened again very slowly, until it opened wide enough 
to admit some one. It afterwards remained still for a while, as 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 589 

though cautiously held open on the other side. The figure of a 
man then entered, with its face turned towards the bed, and stood 
quiet just within the door. Until it said, in a low half-whisper, 
at the same time taking one step forward : "Vendale !" 

"What now ?" he answered, springing from his seat; "who is 
it?" 

It was Obenreizer, and he uttered a cry of surprise as Vendale 
came upon him from that unexpected direction. " Not in bed ? " 
he said, catching him by both shoulders with an instinctive tend- 
ency to a struggle, " Then something is wrongJ " 

"What do you mean?" said Vendale, releasing himself. 

" First tell me ; you are not ill ? " 

"111? No." 

" I have had a bad dream about you. How is it that I see you 
up and dressed ? " 

" My good fellow, I may as well ask you how is it that I see 
you up and undressed ? " 

"I have told you why. I have had a bad dream about you. 
I tried to rest after it, but it was impossible. I could not make 
up my mind to stay where I w^as, without knowing you were safe ; 
and yet I could not make up my mind to come in here. I have 
been minutes hesitating at the door. It is so easy to laugh at a 
dream that you have not dreamed. Where is your candle ? " 

"Burnt out." 

" I have a whole one in my room. Shall I fetch it ? " 

"Do so." 

His room was very near, and he was absent for but a few 
seconds. Coming back with the candle in his hand, he kneeled 
down on the hearth and lighted it. As he blew with his breath a 
charred billet into flame for the purpose, Vendale, looking down at 
him, saw that his lips were white and not easy of control. 

" Yes ! " said Obenreizer, setting the lighted candle on the table, 
" it was a bad dream. Only look at me ! " 

His feet were bare ; his red-flannel shirt was thrown back at 
the throat, and its sleeves were rolled above the elbows ; his only 
other garment, a pair of under pantaloons or drawers, reaching to 
the ankles, fitted him close and tight. A certain lithe and savage 
appearance was on his figure, and his eyes were very bright. 

"If there had been a wrestle with a robber, as I dreamed," said 
Obenreizer, "you see, I was stripped for it." 

"And armed, too," said Vendale, glancing at his girdle. 

" A traveller's dagger, that I always carry on the road," he an- 
swered carelessly, half drawing it from its sheath with his left 
hand, and putting it back again. " Do you carry no such thing ? " 



I 



590 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

" Nothing of the kind." 

" No pistols ? " said Obenreizer, glancing at the table, and from it 
to the untouched pillow. 

" Nothing of the sort." 

" You Englishmen are so confident ! You wish to sleep ? " 

"I have wished to sleep this long time, but I can't do it." 

" I neither, after the bad dream. My fire has gone the way of 
your candle. May I come and sit by yours ? Two o'clock ! It 
will so soon be four, that it is not worth the trouble to go to bed 
again." 

" I shall not take the trouble to go to bed at all, now," said 
Vendale ; "sit here and keep me company, and welcome." 

Going back to his room to arrange his dress, Obenreizer soon 
returned in a loose cloak and slippers, and they sat down on 
opposite sides of the hearth. In the interval, Vendale had replen- 
ished the fire from the wood-basket in his room, and Obenreizer 
had put upon the table a flask and cup from his. 

"Common cabaret brandy, I am afraid," he said, pouring out; 
" bought upon the road, and not like yours from Cripple Corner. 
But yours is exhausted ; so much the worse. A cold night, a cold 
time of night, a cold country, and a cold house. This may be 
better than nothing ; try it." 

Vendale took the cup, and did so. 

"How do you find it?" 

" It has a coarse after-flavour," said Vendale, giving back the 
cup with a slight shudder, "and I don't like it." 

"You are right," said Obenreizer, tasting, and smacking his 
lips ; " it has a coarse after-flavour, and / don't like it. Booh ! it 
burns, though ! " He had flung what remained in the cup, upon 
the fire. 

Each of them leaned an elbow on the table, reclining his head 
upon his hand, and sat looking at the flaring logs. Obenreizer 
remained watchful and still ; but Vendale, after certain nervous 
twitches and starts, in one of which he rose to his feet and looked 
wildly about him, fell into the strangest confusion of dreams. He 
carried his papers in a leather case or pocket-book, in an inner 
breast-pocket of his buttoned travelling coat ; and whatever he 
dreamed of, in the lethargy that got possession of him, something 
importunate in these papers called him out of that dream, though 
he could not wake from it. He was belated on the steppes of 
Russia (some shadowy person gave that name to the place) with 
Marguerite ; and yet the sensation of a hand at his breast, softly 
feeling the outline of the pocket-book as he lay asleep before the fire, 
was present to him. He was shipwrecked in an open boat at sea, 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 591 

and having lost his clothes, had no other covering than an old sail ; 
and yet a creeping hand, tracing outside all the other pockets of 
the dress he actually wore, for papers, and finding none answer its 
touch, warned him to rouse himself. He was in the ancient vault 
at Cripple Corner, to which was transferred the very bed substan- 
tial and present in that very room at Basle ; and Wilding (not dead, 
as he had supposed, and yet he did not wonder much) shook liim, 
and whispered, " Look at that man ! Don't you see he has risen, 
and is turning the pillow ? Why should he turn the pillow, if not 
to seek those papers that are in your breasts Awake ! " And 
yet he slept, and wandered off into other dreams. 

Watchful and still, with his elbow on the table and his head 
upon that hand, his companion at length said : " Vendale ! We 
are called. Past four ! " Then, opening his eyes, he saw, turned 
sideways on him, the filmy face of Obenreizer. 

"You have been in a heavy sleep," he said. "The fatigue of 
constant travelling and the cold ! " 

"I am broad awake now," cried Vendale, springing up, but 
with an unsteady footing. " Haven't you slept at all ? " 

" I may have dozed, but I seem to have been patiently looking 
at the fire. Whether or no, we must wash, and breakfast, and 
turn out. Past four, Vendale , past four ! " 

It was said in a tone to rouse him, for already he was half 
asleep again. In his preparation for the day, too, and at his 
breakfast, he was often virtually asleep while in mechanical action. 
'It w^as not until the cold dark day was closing in, that he had any 
distincter impressions of the ride than jingling bells, bitter weather, 
slipping horses, frowning hill-sides, bleak woods, and a stoppage 
at some wayside house of entertainment, where they had passed 
through a cowhouse to reach the travellers' room above. He had 
been conscious of little more, except of Obenreizer sitting thought- 
ful at his side all day, and eyeing him much. 

But when he shook off" his stupor, Obenreizer was not at his 
side. The carriage was stopping to bait at another wayside house ; 
and a line of long narrow carts, laden with casks of wine, and 
drawn by horses with a quantity of blue collar and head-gear, 
were baiting too. These came from the direction in which the 
travellers were going, and Obenreizer (not thoughtful now, but 
cheerful and alert) was talking with the foremost driver. As 
Vendale stretched his limbs, circulated his blood, and cleared off 
the lees of his lethargy, with a sharp run to and fro in the bracing 
air, the line of carts moved on : the drivers all saluting Obenreizer 
as they passed him. 

" Who are those ? " asked Vendale. 



592 NO THOROUGHFARE 

"They are our carriers — Defresnier and Company's," replied 
Obeureizer. "Those are our casks of wine." He was singing to 
himself, and lighting a cigar. 

"I have been drearily dull company to-day," said Vendale, 
" I don't know what has been the matter with me." 

" You had no sleep last night ; and a kind of brain-congestion 
frequently comes, at first, of such cold," said Obenreizer. " I have 
seen it often. After all, we shall have our journey for nothing, it 
seems." 

"How for nothing?" 

"The House is at Milan. You know, we are a Wine House 
at Neuchatel, and a Silk House at Milan 1 Well, Silk happening 
to press of a sudden, more than Wine, Defresnier was summoned 
to Milan. RoUand, the other partner, has been taken ill since his 
departure, and the doctors will allow him to see no one. A letter 
awaits you at Neuchatel to tell you so. I have it from our chief 
carrier whom you saw me talking with. He was surprised to see 
me, and said he had that word for you if he met you. What do 
you do? Go back?" 

" Go on," said Vendale. 

" On ? " 

"On? Yes. Across the Alps, and down to Milan." 

Obenreizer stopped in his smoking to look at Vendale, and then 
smoked heavily, looked up the road, looked down the road, looked 
down at the stones in the road at his feet, 

"I have a very serious matter in charge," said Vendale; "more 
of these missing forms may be turned to as bad account, or worse ; 
I am urged to lose no time in helping the House to take the thief; 
and nothing shall turn me back." 

"No?" cried Obenreizer, taking out his cigar to smile, and 
giving his hand to his fellow-traveller. " Then nothing shall 
turn 7)ie back. Ho, driver ! Despatch. Quick there ! Let us 
push on ! " 

They travelled through the night. There had been snow, and 
there was a partial thaw, and they mostly travelled at a foot-pace, 
and always with many stoppages to breathe the splashed and 
floundering horses. After an hour's broad daylight, they drew 
rein at the inn-door at Neuchatel, having been some eight-and- 
twenty hours in conquering some eighty English miles. 

When they had hurriedly refreshed and changed, they went 
together to the house of business of Defresnier and Company. 
There they found the letter which the wine-carrier had described, 
enclosing the tests and comparisons of hand -writing essential to 
the discovery of the Forger. Vendale's determination to press for- 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 593 

ward, without resting, being akeady taken, the only question to 
delay them was by what Pass could they cross the Alps ? Respect- 
ing the state of the two Passes of the St. Gotthard and the Simplon, 
the guides and mule-drivers differed greatly; and both Passes 
were still far enough off, to prevent the travellers from having the 
benefit of any recent experience of either. Besides which, they well 
knew that a fall of snow might altogether change the described 
conditions in a single hour, even if they were correctly stated. 
But, on the whole, the Simplon appearing to, be the hopefuller 
route, Vendale decided to take it. Obenreizer bore little or no 
part in the discussion, and scarcely spoke. 

To Geneva, to Lausanne, along the level margin of the lake to 
Vevay, so into the winding valley between the spurs of the moun- 
tains, and into the valley of the Rhone. The sound of the 
carriage-wheels, as they rattled on, through the day, through the 
night, became as the wheels of a great clock, recording the hours. 
No change of weather varied the journey, after it had hardened 
into a sullen frost. In a sombre-yellow sky, they saw the Alpine 
ranges ; and they saw enough of snow on nearer and much lower 
hill-tops and hill-sides, to sully, by contrast, the purity of lake, 
torrent, and waterfall, and make the villages look discoloured and 
dirty. But no snow fell, nor was there any snow-drift on the 
road. The stalking along the valley of more or less of white mist, 
changing on their hair and dress into icicles, was the only variety 
between them and the gloomy sky. And still by day, and still by 
night, the wheels. And still they rolled, in the hearing of one of them, 
to the burden, altered from the burden of the Rhine : " The time 
is gone for robbing him alive, and I must murder him." 

They came, at length, to the poor little town of Brieg, at the 
foot of the Simplon. They came there after dark, but yet could 
see how dwarfed men's work and men became with the immense 
mountains towering over them. Here they must lie for the night ; 
and here was warmth of fire, and lamp, and dinner, and wine, and 
after-conference resounding, with guides and drivers. No human 
creature had come across the Pass for four days. The snow above 
the snow-line was too soft for wheeled carriage, and not hard 
enough for sledge. There was snow in the sky. There had been 
snow in the sky for days past, and the marvel was that it had not 
fallen, and the certainty was that it must fall. No vehicle could 
cross. The journey might be tried on mules, or it might be tried 
on foot ; but the best guides must be paid danger-price in either 
case, and that, too, whether they succeeded in taking the two 
travellers across, or turned for safety and brought them back. 

In this discussion, Obenreizer bore no part whatever. He sat 

2ci 



594 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

silently smoking by the fire until the room was cleared and 
Vendale referred to him. 

" Ball ! I am weary of these poor devils and their trade," he 
said, in reply. "Always the same story. It is the story of their 
trade to-day, as it was the story of their trade when I was a 
ragged boy. What do you and I want 1 We want a knapsack 
each, and a mountain-stafi' each. We want no guide ; we should 
guide him ; he would not guide us. We leave our portmanteaus 
here, and we cross together. We have been on the mountains to- 
gether before now, and I am mountain-born, and I know this Pass 
— Pass ! — rather High Road ! — by heart. We will leave these 
poor devils, in pity, to trade with others ; but they must not 
delay us to make a pretence of earning money. Which is all they 
mean." 

Vendale, glad to be quit of the dispute, and to cut the knot : 
active, adventurous, bent on getting forward, and therefore very sus- 
ceptible to the last hint : readily assented. Within two hours, they 
had purchased what they wanted for the exj:)edition, had packed 
their knapsacks, and lay down to sleep. 

At break of day, they found half the town collected in the 
narrow street to see them depart. The people talked together in 
groups ; the guides and drivers whispered apart, and looked up at 
the sky ; no one wished them a good journey. 

As they began the ascent, a gleam of sun shone from the other- 
wise unaltered sky, and for a moment turned the tin spires of the 
town to silver. 

" A good omen ! " said Vendale (though it died out while he 
spoke). " Perhaps our example will open the Pass on this side." 

" No ; we shall not be followed," returned Obenreizer, looking 
up at the sky and back at the valley. " We shall be alone up 
yonder." 

ON THE MOUNTAIN. 

The road was fair enough for stout walkers, and the air grew 
lighter and easier to breathe as the two ascended. But the settled 
gloom remained as it had remained for days back. Nature seemed 
to have come to a pause. The sense of hearing, no less than the 
sense of sight, was troubled by having to wait so long for the 
change, whatever it might be, that impended. The silence was as 
palpable and heavy as the lowering clouds — or rather cloud, for 
there seemed to be but one in all the sky, and that one covering the 
whole of it. 

Altliough the light was thus dismally shrouded, the prospect 
was not obscured. Down in the valley of the Rhone behind them, 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 595 

the stream could be traced through all its many windings, oppres- 
sively sombre and solemn in its one leaden hue, a colourless waste. 
Far and high above them, glaciers and suspended avalanches over- 
hung the spots where they must pass by-and-bye ; deep and dark 
below them on their right, were awful precipice and roaring torrent ; 
tremendous mountains arose in every vista. The gigantic land- 
scape, uncheered by a touch of changing light or a solitary ray of 
sun, was yet terribly distinct in its ferocity. The hearts of two 
lonely men might shrink a little, if they had to win their way for 
miles and hours among a legion of silent and' motionless men — 
mere men like themselves — all looking at them with fixed and 
frowning front. But how much more, when the legion is of 
Nature's mightiest works, and the frown may turn to fury in an 
instant ! 

As they ascended, the road became gradually more rugged and 
difficult. But the spirits of Vendale rose as they mounted higher, 
leaving so much more of the road behind them conquered. Oben- 
reizerlpoke little, and held on with a determined purpose. Both, 
in respect of agility and endurance, were well qualified for the 
expedition. Whatever the born mountaineer read in the weather- 
tokens, that was illegible to the other, he kept to himself. 

" Shall we get across to-day ? " asked Vendale. 

" No," replied the other. " You see how much deeper the snow 
lies here than it lay half a league lower. The higher we mount, 
the deeper the snow will lie. Walking is half wading even now. 
And the days are so short ! If we get as high as the fifth Refuge, 
and lie to-night at tlie Hospice, we shall do well." 

" Is there no danger of the weather rising in the night," asked 
Vendale, anxiously, " and snowing us up ? " 

"There is danger enough about us," said Obenreizer, with a cau- 
tious glance onward and upward, " to render silence our best policy. 
You hlive heard of the Bridge of the Ganther ? " 

" I have crossed it once.". 

" In the summer ? " 

" Yes ; in the travelling season." 

« Yes • but it is another thing at this season ; " with a sneer, as 
thouo-h he were out of temper. " This is not a time of year, or a 
state of things, on an Alpine Pass, that you gentlemen holiday- 
travellers know much about." 

"You are my Guide," said Vendale, good humouredly. i 

trust to you." , -r .„ •^ 

"I am your Guide," said Obenreizer, "and I will guide you to 

your journey's end. There is the Bridge before us." 

They had made a turn into a desolate and dismal ravine, where 



596 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

the snow lay deep below them, deep above them, deep on every side. / 
While speaking, Obenreizer stood pointing at the Bridge, and ob- 
serving Vendale's face with a very singular expression on his own. 

"If I, as Guide, had sent you over there, in advance, and 
encouraged you to give a shout or two, you might have brought 
down upon yourself tons and tons and tons of snow, that would 
not only have struck you dead, but buried you deep, at a blow\" 

"No doubt," said Vendale. 

" No doubt. But that is not what I have to do, as Guide. So 
pass silently. Or, going as we go, our indiscretion might else crush 
and bury me. Let us go on ! " 

There was a great accumulation of snow on the Bridge ; and 
such enormous accumulations of snow overhung them from project- 
ing masses of rock, that they might have been making their waj"- 
through a stormy sky of white clouds. Using his staff skilfully, 
sounding as he went, and looking upward, with bent shoulders, as 
it were to resist the mere idea of a fall from above, Obenreizer softly 
led. Vendale closely followed. They were yet in the midst of 
their dangerous way, when there came a mighty rush, followed by 
a sound as of thunder. Obenreizer clapped his hand on Vendale's 
mouth and pointed to the track behind them. Its aspect had been 
wholly changed in a moment. An avalanche had swept over it, 
and plunged into the torrent at the bottom of the gulf below. 

Their appearance at the solitary Inn not far beyond this terrible 
Bridge, elicited many expressions of astonishment from the people 
shut up in the house. "AVe stay but to rest," said Obenreizer, 
shaking the snow from his dress at the fire. " This gentleman 
has very pressing occasion to get across ; — tell them, Vendale." 

"Assuredly, I have very pressing occasion. I must cross." 

" You hear, all of you. My friend has very pressing occasion to 
get across, and we want no advice and no help. I am as good a 
guide, my fellow-countrymen, as any of you. Now, give us to eat 
and drink." 

In exactly the same way, and in nearly the same words, when it 
.was coming on dark and they had struggled through the greatly 
increased difficulties of the road, and had at last reached their des- 
tination for the night, Obenreizer said to the astonished people of 
the Hospice, gathering about them at the fire, while they were yet 
in the act of getting their wet shoes off", and shaking the snow 
from their clothes : 

" It is well to understand one another, friends all. This gentle- 
man " 

— " Has," said Vendale, readily taking him up with a smile, 
^'very pressing occasion to get across. Must cross," 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 597 

"You hear? — has very pressing occasion to get across, must 
cross. We want no advice and no help. I am mountain-born, 
and act as Guide. Do not worry us by talking about it, but let 
us have supper, and wine, and bed." 

All through the intense cold of the night, the same awful still- 
ness. Again at sunrise, no sunny tinge to gild or redden the snow. 
The same interminable waste of deathly white ; the same immov- 
able air ; the same monotonous gloom in the sky. 

" Travellers ! " a friendly voice called to them from the door, 
after they were afoot, knapsack on back and staff in hand, as 
yesterday : " recollect ! There are five places of shelter, near 
together, on the dangerous road before you; and there is the 
wooden cross, and there is the next Hospice. Do not stray from 
the track. If the Tounnente comes on, take shelter instantly ! " 

" The trade of these poor devils ! " said Obenreizer to his friend, 
with a contemptuous backward wave of his hand towards the 
voice. "How they stick to their trade! You EngHshmen say 
we Swiss are mercenary. Truly, it does look like it." 

They had divided between the two knapsacks, such refreshments 
as they had been able to obtain that morning, and as they deemed 
it prudent to take. Obenreizer carried the wine as his share of 
the burden ; Veudale, the bread and meat and cheese, and the flask 
of brandy. 

They had for some time laboured upward and onward through 
the snow — which was now above their knees in the track, and of 
unknown depth elsewhere — and they were still labouring upward 
and onward through the most frightful part of that tremendous 
desolation, when snow began to fall. At first, but a few flakes 
descended slowly and steadily. After a little while the fall grew 
much denser, and suddenly it began without apparent cause to 
whirl itself into spiral shapes. Instantly ensuing upon this last 
change, an icy blast came roaring at them, and every sound and 
force imprisoned until now was let loose. 

One of the dismal galleries through which the road is carried at 
that perilous point, a cave eked out by arches of great strength, 
was near at hand. They struggled into it, and the storm raged 
wildly. The noise of the wind, the noise of the water, the thun- 
dering down of displaced masses of rock and snow, the awful 
voices with which not only that gorge but every gorge in the 
whole monstrous range seemed to be suddenly endowed, the dark- 
ness as of night, the violent revolving of the snow which beat and 
broke it into spray and blinded them, the madness of everything 
around insatiate for destruction, the rapid substitution of furious 
violence for unnatural calm, and hosts of appalling sounds for 



598 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

silence: these were things, on the edge of a deep abyss, to chill 
the blood, though the fierce wind, made actually solid by ice and 
snow, had failed to chill it. f 

Obenreizer, walking to and fro in the gallery without ceasing, 
signed to Vendale to help him unbuckle his knapsack. They 
could see each other, but could not have heard each other speak, 
Vendale complying, Obenreizer produced his bottle of wine, and 
poured some out, motioning Vendale to take that for warmth's 
sake, and not brandy. Vendale again complying, Obenreizer 
seemed to drink after him, and the two walked backwards and 
forwards side by side; both well knowing that to rest or sleep 
would be to die. 

The snow came driving heavily into the gallery by the upper 
end at which they would pass out of it, if they ever passed out ; 
for greater dangers lay on the road behind them than before. The 
snow soon began to choke the arch. An hour more, and it lay so 
high as to block out half of the returning daylight. But it froze 
hard now, as it fell, and could be clambered through or over. The 
violence of the mountain storm was gradually yielding to a steady 
snowfall. The wind still raged at intervals, but not incessantly ; 
and when it paused, the snow fell in heavy flakes. 

They might have been two hours in their frightful prison, when 
Obenreizer, now crunching into the mound, now creeping over it 
with his head bowed down and his body touching the top of the 
arch, made his way out, Vendale followed close upon him, but 
followed without clear motive or calculation. For the lethargy 
of Basle was creeping over him again, and mastering his senses. 

How far he had followed out of the gallery, or with what obsta- 
cles he had since contended, he knew not. He became roused to 
the knowledge that Obenreizer had set upon him, and that they 
were struggling desperately in the snow. He became roused to 
the remembrance of what his assailant carried in a girdle. He 
felt for it, drew it, struck at him, struggled again, struck at him 
again, cast him off", and stood face to face with him. 

"I promised to guide you to your journey's end," said Oben- 
reizer, "and I have kept my promise. The journey of your life 
ends here. Nothing can prolong it. You are sleeping as you 
stand." 

" You are a villain. What have you done to me ? " 

" You are a fool. I have drugged you. You are doubly a fool, 
for I drugged you once before upon the journey, to try you. You 
are trebly a fool, for I am the thief and forger, and in a few mo- 
ments I shall take those proofs against the thief and forger from 
your insensible body." 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 699 

The entrapped man tried to throw off the lethargy, but its fatal 
hold upon him was so sure that, even while he heard those words, 
he stupidly wondered which of them had been wounded, and whose 
blood it was that he saw sprinkled on the snow. ,,,.,, 

" What have I done to you," he asked, heavily and thickly, 
' that you should be — so base — a murderer ? " , ^ ^, ^ 

"Done to me? You would have destroyed me, but that you 
h.ve come to your journey's end. Your cursed activity interposed 
between me, and the time I had counted on m which I might have 
replaced the money. Done to me? Yon have come ^^J!^r ^^'^V 
-not once, not twice, but again and agam and agam. Uid 1 tiy 
to shake you off in the beginning, m- no? You were not to be 
shaken off. Therefore you die here." 

Vendale tried to think coherently, tried to speak coherently, 
tried to pick up the iron-shod staff he had let fall ; fading o touch 
it tried to stagger on without its aid. All m vain, all in vam ! 
He stumbled, and fell heavily forward on the brink of the deep 

"stupefied dozing, unable to stand upon his feet, a veil before 
his eye hi sense of hearing deadened, he made such a vigorous 
iilly'tlmt supporting himself on his hands he saw his enemy 
standini' calmly over him, and heard him speak. . , , 

"You call me murderm-," said Obenreizer, wuth a grim laugh. 
"The name matters very little. But at least I have set my life 
a^unst yours, for I am surrounded by dangers, and may neve, 
make my way out of this place. The Tourmente is rismg agam. 
¥he S.ZT now on the whiri. I must have the papers now. 

^f^l^^r^^rZ^^^^'^nm. voice, staggering up with 
a last Zh of fire breaking out of him, and clutching the ttiievis^ 
hands at his breast, in both of his. "Stop! Stand away tiom 
me . God bless m^ Marguerite ! Happily she wil never know 
how I died. Stand off from me, and let me look a your 
murderous face. Let it remind me -of somethmg - left to 

""i'he sight of him fighting so hard for his senses and the doubt 
whether he mi-^ht not for the instant be possessed by the strengtli 
rf a dozen m^i, kept his opponent still. Wildly glaring at hun, 
Vendale faltered out the broken words : ^^t„™i w me 

"It shall not be -the trust -of the dead - betrayed by me 
-reputed parents - misinherited fortune -sec to it 

As his head dropped on his breast, and he stumbled on the brmk 
of the di':::: as b'eLe, the thievish hands -nt once moi., quick 
and busy, to his breast. He made a convulsive attempt to cry 



600 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

"No!" desperately rolled himself over into the gulf; and sank 
away from his enemy's touch, like a phantom in a dreadful dream. 

The mountain storm raged again, and passed again. The awfull 
mountain-voices died away, the moon rose, and the soft and silent 
snow fell. 

Two men and two large dogs came out at the door of the Hos- 
pice. The men looked carefully around them, and up at the skj. 
The dogs rolled in the snow, and took it into their mouths, and 
cast it up with their paws. 

One of the men said to the other : " We may venture no v. 
We may find them in one of the five Refuges." Each fastened on 
his back, a basket ; each took in his hand, a strong spiked pole ; 
each girded under his arms, a looped end of a stout rope, so that 
they were tied together. 

Suddenly the dogs desisted from their gambols in the snow, stood 
looking down the ascent, put their noses up, put their noses down, 
became greatly excited, and broke into a deep loud bay together. 

The two men looked in the faces of the two dogs. The two dogs 
looked, with at least equal intelligence, in the faces of the two men. 

" Au secours, then ! Help ! To the rescue ! " cried the two men. 
The two dogs, with a glad, deep, generous bark, bounded away. 

" Two more mad ones ! " said the men, stricken motionless, and 
looking away into the moonlight. "Is it possible in such weather ! 
And one of them a woman ! " 

Each of the dogs had the corner of a woman's dress in its mouth, 
and drew her along. She fondled their heads as she came up, and 
she came up through the snow with an accustomed tread. Not so 
the large man with her, who was spent and winded. 

" Dear guides, dear friends of travellers ! I am of your country. 
W^e seek two gentlemen crossing the Pass, who should have reached 
the Hospice this evening." 

" They have reached it, ma'amselle." 

" Thank Heaven ! thank Heaven ! " 

"But, unhappily, they have gone on again. We are setting 
forth to seek them even now. We had to wait until the Tour- 
mente passed. It has been fearful up here." 

"Dear guides, dear friends of travellers ! Let me go with you. 
Let me go with you, for the love of God ! One of those gentlemen 
is to be my husband. I love him, oh, so dearly. so dearly ! 
You see I am not faint, you see I am not tired. I am born a 
peasant girl. I will show you that I know well how to fasten 
myself to your ropes. I will do it with my own hands. I will 
swear to be brave and good. But let me go with you, let me go 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 601 

with you ! If any mischance should have befallen him, my love 
would find him, when nothing else could. On my knees, dear 
friends of travellers ! By the love your dear mothers had for 
your fathers ! " 

The good rough fellows were moved. "After all," they mur- 
mured to one another, "she speaks but the truth. She knows the 
ways of the mountains. See how marvellously she has come here ! 
But as to Monsieur there, ma'amselle ? " 

"Dear Mr. Joey," said Marguerite, addressing him in his own 
tongue, "you will remain at the house, and wait for me; will you 
not ? " 

"If I know'd which o' you two recommended it," growled Joey 
Ladle, eyeing the two men with great indignation, " I'd fight you 
for sixpence, and give you half-a-crown towards your expenses. 
No, Miss. I'll stick by you as long as there's any sticking left in 
me, and I'll die for you when I can't do better." 

The state of the moon rendering it highly important that no 
time should be lost, and the dogs showing signs of great uneasiness, 
the two men quickly took their resolution. The rope that yoked 
them together was exchanged for a longer one ; the party were 
secured. Marguerite second, and the Cellarman last ; and they set 
out for the Refuges. The actual distance of those places was 
nothing; the whole five and the next Hospice to boot, being 
within two miles; but the ghastly way was whitened out and 
sheeted over. 

They made no miss in reaching the Gallery where the two had 
taken shelter. The second storm of wind and snow had so wildly 
swept over it since, that their tracks were gone. But the dogs 
went to and fro with their noses down, and were confident. The 
party stopping, however, at the further arch, where the second 
storm had been especially furious, and where the drift was deep, 
the dogs became troubled, and went about and about, in quest of a 
lost purpose. 

The great abyss being known to lie on the right, they wandered too 
mucli to the left, and had to regain the way with infinite labour 
through a deep field of snow. The leader of the line had stopped 
it, and was taking note of the landmarks, when one of the dogs fell 
to tearing up the snow a little before them. Advancing and stooping 
to look at it, thinking that some one might be overwhelmed 
there, they saw that it was stained, and that the stain was red. 

The other dog was now seen to look over the brink of the gulf, 
with his fore legs straiglitened out, lest he should fall into it, and 
to tremble in every limb. Then the dog who had found the 
stained snow joined him, and then they ran to and fro, distressed 



602 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

and whining. Finally, they both stopped on the brink together, 
and setting up their heads, howled dolefully. 

"There is some one lying below," said Marguerite. 

" I think so," said the foremost man. " Stand well inward, the 
two last, and let us look over." 

The last man kindled two torches from his basket, and handed 
them forward. The leader taking one, and Marguerite the other, 
they looked down : now shading the torches, now moving them to 
the right or left, now raising them, now depressing them, as 
moonlight far below contended with black shadows. A piercing 
cry from Marguerite broke a long silence. 

" My God ! On a projecting point, where a wall of ice 
stretches forward over the torrent, I see a human form ! " 

"Where, ma'amselle, where?" 

" See, there ! On the shelf of ice below the dogs ! " 

The leader, with a sickened aspect, drew inward, and they were 
all silent. But they were not all inactive, for Marguerite, with 
swift and skilful fingers, had detached both herself and him from 
the rope in a few seconds. 

" Show me the baskets. These two are the only ropes 1 " 

"The only ropes here, ma'amselle; but at the Hospice " 

"If he is alive — I know it is my lover — he will be dead 
before you can return. Dear Guides ! Blessed friends of travel- 
lers ! Look at me ! Watch my hands. If they falter or go 
wrong, make me your prisoner by force. If they are steady and 
go right, help me to save him ! " 

She girded herself with a cord under the breast and arras, she 
formed it into a kind of jacket, she drew it into knots, she laid its 
end side by side with the end of the other cord, she twisted and 
twined the two together, she knotted them together, she set lier 
foot upon the knots, she strained them, she held them for the two 
men to strain at. 

" She is inspired," they said to one another. 

"By the Almighty's mercy!" she exclaimed. "You both 
know that I am by far the lightest here. Give me the brandy 
and the wine, and lower me down to him. Then go for assistance 
and a stronger rope. You see that when it is lowered to me — 
look at this about me now — I can make it fast and safe to his 
body. Alive or dead, I will bring him up, or die with him. I 
love him passionately. Can I say more?" 

They turned to her companion, but he was lying senseless on 
the snow. 

"Lower me down to him," she said, taking two little kegs they 
had brought, and hanging them about her, " or I will dash myself 



NO THOKOUGHFARE. 603 

to pieces ! I am a peasant, and I know no giddiness or fear ; and this 
is nothing to me, and I passionately love him. Lower me down ! " 

"Ma'amselle, ma'amselle, he must be dying or dead." 

"Dying or dead, my husband's head shall lie upon my breast, 
or I will dash myself to pieces." 

They yielded, overborne. With such precautions as their skill 
and the circumstances admitted, they let lier slip from the summit, 
guiding herself down the precipitous icy wall with her hand, and 
they lowered down, and lowered down, and lowered down, until 
tlie ciy came up : " Enough ! " 

" Is it really he, and is he dead ? " they called down, looking over. 

The cry came up : " He is insensible ; but his heart beats. It 
beats against mine." 

"How does he lie?" 

The cry came up : " Upon a ledge of ice. It has thawed 
beneath him, and it will thaw beneath me. Hasten. If we die, 
I am content." 

One of the two men hurried off with the dogs at such topmost 
speed as he could make ; the other set up the lighted torches in 
the snow, and applied himself to recovering the Englishman. 
Much snow-chafing and some brandy got him on his legs, but 
delirious and quite unconscious where he was. 

The watch remained upon the brink, and his cry went down 
continually : " Courage ! They will soon be here. How goes 
it ? " And the cry came up : " His heart still beats against mine. 
I warm him in my arms. I have cast off tlie rope, for the ice 
melts under us, and the rope would separate me from him ; but 
I am not afraid." 

The moon went down behind the mountain tops, and all the 
abyss lay in darkness. The cry went down : " How goes it ? " 
The cry came up : " We are sinking lower, but his heart still 
beats against mine." 

At length, the eager barking of the dogs, and a flare of light 
upon the snow, proclaimed that help was coming on. Twenty or 
thirty men, lamps, torches, litters, ropes, blankets, wood to kindle 
a great fire, restoratives and stimulants, came in fast. The dogs 
ran from one man to another, and from this thing to that, and ran 
to the edge of the abyss, dumbly entreating Speed, speed, speed ! 

The cry went down : " Thanks to God, all is ready. How 
goes it 1 " 

The cry came up : " We are sinking still, and we are deadly 
cold. His heart no longer beats against mine. Let no one come 
down to add to our weight. Lower the rope only." 

The fire was kindled high, a great glare of torches lighted the 



604 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

sides of the precipice, lamps were lowered, a strong rope was 
lowered. She could be seen passing it round him, and making it 
secure. 

The cry came up into a deathly silence : " Raise ! Softly ! " 
They could see her diminished figure shrink, as he was swung into 
the air. 

They gave no shout when some of them laid him on a litter, and 
others lowered another strong rope. The cry again came up into 
a deathly silence : " Raise ! Softly ! " But when they caught her 
at the brink, then they shouted, then they wept, then they gave 
thanks to Heaven, then they kissed her feet, then they kissed her 
dress, then the dogs caressed her, licked her icy hands, and with 
their honest faces warmed her frozen bosom ! 

She broke from them all, and sank over him on his litter, with 
both her loving hands upon the heart that stood still. 



Act IV. 

THE CLOCK-LOCK. 

The pleasant scene was Neuchatel; the pleasant month was 
April; the pleasant place was a notary's office; the pleasant 
person in it was the notary : a rosy, hearty, handsome old man, 
chief notary of Neuchatel, known far and wide in the canton as 
Maitre Voigt. Professionally and personally, the notary was a 
popular citizen. His innumerable kindnesses and his innumerable 
oddities had for years made him one of the recognised public 
characters of the pleasant Swiss town. His long brown frock- 
coat and his black skull-cap were among the institutions of the 
place ; and he carried a snuff-box which, in point of size, was 
popularly believed to be without a parallel in Europe. 

There was another person in the notary's office, not so pleasant 
as the notary. This was Obenreizer. 

An oddly pastoral kind of office it was, and one that would 
never have answered in England. It stood in a neat back-yard, 
fenced off from a pretty flower-garden. Goats browsed in the 
doorway, and a cow was within half a dozen feet of keeping 
company with the clerk. Maitre Voigt's room was a bright and 
varnished little room, with panelled walls, like a toy-chamber. 
According to the seasons of the year, roses, sunflowers, hollyhocks, 
peeped in at the windows. Maitre Voigt's bees hummed through 
the office all the summer, in at this window and out at that, 
taking it frequently in their day's work, as if honey were to be 
made from Maitre Voigt's sweet disposition. A large musical 



NO THOEOUGHFARE. 605 

box on the chimney-piece often trilled away at the Overture to 
Fra Diavolo, or a Selection from William Tell, with a chirruping 
liveliness that had to be stopped by force on the entrance of a 
client, and irrepressibly broke out again the moment his back was 
turned. 

" Courage, courage, my good fellow ! " said Maitre Voigt, patting 
Obenreizer on the knee, in a fatherly and comforting way. " You 
will begin a new life to-morrow morning in my office here." 

Obenreizer — dressed in mourning, and subdued in manner — 
lifted his hand, with a white handkerchief in ft, to the region of 
his heart. " The gratitude is here," he said. "But the words to 
express it are not here." 

" Ta-ta-ta ! Don't talk to me about gratitude ! " said Maitre 
Voigt. " I hate to see a man oppressed. I see you oppressed, 
and I hold out my hand to you by instinct. Besides, I am not 
too old yet, to remember my young days. Your father sent me 
my first client. (It was on a question of half an acre of vineyard 
that seldom bore any grapes.) Do I owe nothing to your father's 
son? I owe him a debt of friendly obligation, and I pay it to 
you. That's rather neatly expressed, I think," added Maitre 
Voigt, in high good humour with himself. "Permit me to 
reward my own merit with a pinch of snuff ! " 

Obenreizer dropped his eyes to the ground, as though he were 
not even worthy to see the notary take snuff. 

"Do me one last favour, sir," he said, when he raised his eyes. 
"Do not act on impulse. Thus far, you have only a general 
knowledge of my position. Hear the case for and against me, in 
its details, before you take me into your office. Let my claim on 
your benevolence be recognised by your sound reason as well as 
by your excellent heart. In tliat case, I may hold up my head 
against the bitterest of my enemies, and build myself a new repu- 
tation on the ruins of the character I have lost." 

"As you will," said Maitre Voigt. "You speak well, my son. 
You will be a fine lawyer one of these day*." 

" The details are not many," pursued Obenreizer. " My troubles 
begin with the accidental death of my late travelling companion, 
my lost dear friend, Mr. Vendale." 

"Mr. Vendale," repeated the notary. "Just so. I have 
heard and read of the name, several times within these two 
months. The name of the unfortunate English gentleman who 
was killed on the Siraplon. When you got that scar upon your 
cheek and neck." 

" — From my own knife," said Obenreizer, touching what must 
have been an ugly gash at the time of its infliction. 



606 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

"From your own knife," assented the notary, "and in trying 
to save him. Good, good, good. That was very good. Vendale. 
Yes. I have several times, lately, thought it droll that I should 
once have had a client of that name." 

" But the world, sir," returned Obenreizer, " is so small ! " 
Nevertheless he made a mental note that the notary had once had 
a client of that name. 

" As I was saying, sir, the death of that dear travelling comrade 
begins my troubles. What follows ? I save myself. I go down 
to Milan. I am received with coldness by Defresnier and Com- 
pany. Shortly afterwards, I am discharged by Defresnier and 
Company. Why' They give no reason why. I ask, do they 
assail my honour? No answer. I ask, what is the imputation 
against me ? No answer. I ask, where are their proofs against 
me? No answer. I ask, what am I to think? The reply is, 
' M. Obenreizer is free to think what he will. AVhat M. Oben- 
reizer thinks, is of no importance to Defresnier and Company.' 
And that is all." 

"Perfectly. That is all," assented the notary, taking a large 
pinch of snuff. 

" But is that enough, sir ? " 

"That is not enough," said Maitre Voigt. "The House of 
Defresnier are my fellow-townsmen — much respected, much es- 
teemed — but the House of Defresnier must not silently destroy 
a man's character. You can rebut assertion. But how can you 
rebut silence ? " 

"Your sense of justice, my dear patron," answered Obenreizer, 
" states in a word the cruelty of the case. Does it stop there ? 
No. For, wliat follows upon that ? " 

"True, my poor boy," said the notary, with a comforting nod 
or two ; "your ward rebels upon that." 

"Rebels is too soft a word," retorted Obenreizer. "My ward 
revolts from me with horror. My ward defies me. My ward 
withdraws herself from* my authority, and takes shelter (Madame 
Dor with her) in the house of that English lawyer, Mr. Bintrey, 
who replies to your summons to her to submit herself to my 
authority, that she will not do so." 

" — And who afterwards writes," said the notary, moving his 
large snuff-box to look among the papers underneath it for the 
letter, "that he is coming to confer with me." 

"Indeed?" replied Obenreizer, rather checked. "Well, sir. 
Have I no legal rights?" 

"Assuredly, my poor boy," returned the notary. "All but 
felons have their legal rights." 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 607 

" And who calls me felon ? " said Obenreizer, fiercely, 

"No one. Be calm under your wrongs. If the House of 
Defresnier would call you felon, indeed, we should know how to 
deal with them." 

While saying these words, he had handed Bintrey's very short 
letter to Obenreizer, who now read it and gave it back. 

" In saying," observed Obenreizer with recovered composure, 
" that he is coming to confer with you, this English lawyer means 
that he is coming to deny my authority over my ward." 

"You think so?" 

" I am sure of it. I know him. He is obstinate and conten- 
tious. You will tell me, my dear sir, whether my authority is 
unassailable, until my ward is of age ? " 

"Absolutely unassailable." 

" I will enforce it. I will make her submit herself to it. For," 
said Obenreizer, changing his angry tone to one of grateful submis- 
sion, "I owe it to you, sir ; to you, who have so confidingly taken 
an injured man under your protection, and into your employment." 

" Make your mind easy," said Maitre Voigt. " No more of this 
now, and no thanks ! Be here to-morrow morning, before the 
other clerk comes — between seven and eight. You will find me 
in this room ; and I will myself initiate you in your work. Go 
away ! go away ! I have letters to write. I won't hear a word 
more." 

Dismissed with this generous abruptness, and satisfied with the 
favourable impression he had left on the old man's mind, Oben- 
reizer was at leisure to revert to the mental note he had made that 
Maitre Voigt once had a client whose name was Vendale. 

" I ought to know England well enough by this time ; " so his 
meditations ran, as he sat on a bench in the yard; "and it is not 
a name I ever encountered there, except — " he looked involun- 
tarily over his shoulder — "as his name. Is the world so small 
that I cannot get away from him, even now when he is dead ? He 
confessed at the last that he had betrayed the trust of the dead, 
and misinherited a fortune. And I was to see to it. And I was 
to stand off", that my face might remind him of it. Why my face, 
unless it concerned me? I am sure of his words, for they have 
been in my ears ever since. Can there be anything bearing on 
them, in the keeping of this old idiot ? Anything to repair my 
fortunes, and blacken his memory? He dwelt upon my earliest 
remembrances, that night at Basle. Why, unless he had a purpose 
in it?" 

Maitre Voigt's two largest he-goats were butting at him to butt 
him out of the place, as if for that disrespectful mention of their 



608 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

master. So he got up and left the place. But he walked alone 
for a long time on the border of the lake, with his head drooped 
in deep thought. 

Between seven and eight next morning, he presented himself 
at the oifice. He found the notary ready for him, at work on 
some papers which had come in on the previous evening. In a 
few clear words, Maitre Voigt explained the routine of the ofl&ce, 
and the duties Obenreizer would be expected to perform. It still 
w^anted five minutes to eight, when the preliminary instructions 
were declared to be complete. 

" I will show you over the house and the offices," said Maitre 
Voigt, " but I must put away these papers first. They come 
from the municipal authorities, and they must be taken special 
care of." 

Obenreizer saw his chance, here, of finding out the repository 
in which his employer's private papers were kept. 

"Can't I save you the trouble, sir?" he asked. " Can't I put 
those documents away under your directions 1 " 

Maitre Voigt laughed softly to himself; closed the portfolio in 
which the papers had been sent to him ; handed it to Obenreizer. 

" Suppose you try," he said. " AU my papers of importance 
are kept yonder." 

He pointed to a heavy oaken door, thickly studded with nails, 
at the lower end of the room. Approaching the door, with the 
portfolio, Obenreizer discovered,, to his astonishment, that there 
were no means whatever of opening it from the outside. There 
was no handle, no bolt, no key, and (climax of passive obstruction !) 
no keyhole. 

" There is a second door to this room ? " said Obenreizer, appeal- 
ing to the notary. 

" No," said Maitre Voigt. " Guess again." 

" There is a window ? " 

" Nothing of the sort. The window has been bricked up. The 
only way in, is the way by that door. Do you give it up ? " cried 
Maitre Voigt in high triumph. " Listen my good fellow, and tell 
me if you hear nothing inside 1 " 

Obenreizer listened for a moment, and started back from the 
door. 

" I know ! " he exclaimed. " I heard of this when I was ap- 
prenticed here at the watch-maker's. Perrin Brothers have fin- 
ished their famous clock-lock at last — and you have got it?" 

" Bravo ! " said Maitre Voigt. " The clock-lock it is ! There, 
my son ! There you have one more of what the good people of 
this town call, ' Daddy Voigt's follies.' With all my heart ! Let 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 609 

those laugh who win. No thief can steal my keys. No burglar 
can pick my lock. No power on earth, short of a battering-ram 
or a barrel of gunpowder, can move that door, till my little sentinel 
inside — my worthy friend who goes 'Tick, Tick,' as I tell him — 
says, ' Open ! ' The big door obeys the little Tick, Tick, and the 
little Tick, Tick, obeys me. That ! " cried Daddy Yoigt, snapping 
his fingers, " for all the thieves in Christendom ! " 

"May I see it in action?" asked Obenreizer. "Pardon my 
curiosity, dear sir ! You know that I was once a tolerable worker 
in the clock trade." 

"Certainly you shall see it in action," said Maitre Voigt. 
" What is the time now ? One minute to eight. Watch, and in 
one minute you will see the door open of itself." 

In one minute, smoothly and slowly and silently, as if invisible 
hands had set it free, the heavy door opened inward, and disclosed 
a dark chamber beyond. On three sides, shelves filled the walls, 
from floor to ceiling. Arranged on the shelves, were rows upon 
rows of boxes made in the pretty inlaid woodwork of Switzerland, 
and bearing inscribed on their fronts (for the most part in fanciful 
coloured letters) the names of the notary's clients. 

Maitre Voigt lighted a taper, and led the way into the room. 

"You shall see the clock," he said, proudly. "I possess the 
greatest curiosity in Europe. It is only a privileged few whose 
eyes can look at it. I give the privilege to your good father's son 
— you shall be one of the favoured few who enter the room with me. 
See ! here it is, on the right-hand wall at the side of the door." 

"An ordinary clock," exclaimed Obenreizer. "No! Not an 
ordinary clock. It has only one hand." 

" Aha ! " said Maitre Yoigt. " Not an ordinary clock, my 
friend. No, no. That one hand goes round the dial. As I put 
it, so it regulates the hour at which the door shall open. See ! 
The hand points to eight. At eight the door opened, as you saw 
for yourself." 

" Does it open more than once in the four-and- twenty hours ? " 
asked Obenreizer. 

"More than once?" repeated the notary, with great scorn. 
"You don't know my good friend. Tick, Tick! He will open 
the door as often as I ask him. All he wants, is his directions, 
and he gets them here. Look below the dial. Here is a ^alf- 
circle of steel let into the wall, and here is a hand (called the 
regulator) that travels round it, just as my hand chooses. Notice, 
if you please, that there are figures to guide me on the half-circle 
of steel. Figure I. means : Open once in the four-and-twenty 
hours. Figure II. means : Open twice ; and so on to the end. I 

2k 



GIO NO THOROUGHFARE. 

set the regulator every morning, after I have read my letters, and 
when I know what my day's work is to be. Would you like to 
see me set it now ? What is to-day ? Wednesday. Good ! 
This is the day of our rifle-club ; there is little business to do ; I 
grant a half-holiday. No work here to-day, after three o'clock. 
Let us first put away this portfolio of municipal papers. There ! 
No need to trouble Tick, Tick, to open the door until eight to- 
morrow. Good ! I leave the dial-hand at eight ; I put back the 
regulator to 'I.'; I close the door ; and closed the door remains, 
past all opening by anybody, till to-morrow morning at eight." 

Obenreizer's quickness instantly saw the means by which he 
might make the clock-lock betray its master's confidence, and 
place its master's papers at his disposal. 

'' Stop, sir ! " he cried, at the moment when the notary was 
closing the door. "Don't I see something moving among the 
boxes — on the floor there 1 " 

(Maitre Voigt turned his back for a moment to look. In that 
moment, Obenreizer's ready hand put the regulator on, from the fig- 
ure ' I.' to the figure ' II.' Unless the notary looked again at the half- 
circle of steel, the door would open at eight that evening, as well as 
at eight next morning, and nobody but Obenreizer would know it.) 

" There is nothing ! " said Maitre Voigt. " Your troubles have 
shaken your nerves, my son. Some shadow thrown by my taper ; 
or some poor little beetle, who lives among the old lawyer's secrets, 
running away from the light. Hark ! I hear your fellow-clerk 
in the office. To work ! to work ! and build to-day the first step 
that leads to your new fortunes ! " 

He good humouredly pushed Obenreizer out before him ; ex- 
tinguished the taper, with a last fond glance at his clock which 
passed harmlessly over the regulator beneath ; and closed the 
oaken door. 

At three the office was shut up. The notary and everybody in 
the notary's employment, with one exception, went to see the rifle- 
shooting. Obenreizer had pleaded that he was not in spirits for a 
public festival. Nobody knew what had become of him. It was 
believed that he had slipped away for a solitary walk. 

The house and offices had been closed but a few minutes, when 
the door of a shining wardrobe, in the notary's shining room, 
opehed, and Obenreizer stepped out. He walked to a window, 
unclosed the shutters, satisfied himself that he could escape unseen 
by way of the garden, turned back into the room, and took his 
place in the notary's easy-chair. He was locked up in the house, 
and there were five hours to wait before eight o'clock came. 

He wore his way through the five hours : sometimes reading tlie 



NO THOKOUGHFARE. 611 

books and newspapers that lay on the table : sometimes thinking : 
sometimes walking to and fro. Sunset came on. He closed the 
window-shutters before he kindled a light. The candle lighted, and 
the time drawing nearer and nearer, he sat, watch in hand, with his 
eyes on the oaken door. 

At eight, smoothly and softly and silently the door opened. 
One after another, he read the names on the outer rows of boxes. 
No such name as Veudale ! He removed the outer row, and looked 
at the row behind. These were older boxes, and shabbier boxes. 
The four first that he examined were inscribed^ with French and 
German names. The fifth bore a name which was almost illegible. 
He brought it out into the room, and examined it closely. There, 
covered thickly with time-stains and dust,, was the name: 
" Vendale." 

The key hung to the box by a string. He unlocked the box, 
took out four loose papers that were in it, spread them open on 
the table, and began to read them. He had not so occupied a 
minute, when his face fell from its expression of eagerness and 
avidity, to one of haggard astonishment and disappointment. 
But, after a little consideration, he copied the papers. He then 
replaced the papers, replaced the box, closed the door, extinguished 
the candle, and stole away. 

As his murderous and thievish footfall passed out of the garden, 
the steps of the notary and some one accompanying him stopped 
at the front door of the house. The lamps were lighted in the 
little street, and the notary had his door-key in his hand. 

" Pray do not pass my house, Mr. Bintrey," he said. " Do me 
the honour to come in. It is one of our town half-holidays — our 
Tir— but my people will be back directly. It is droll that you 
should ask your way to the Hotel of me. Let us eat and drink 
before you go there." 

"Thank you; not to-night," said Bintrey. "Shall I come to 

you at ten to-morrow ? " • <? 

" I shall be enchanted, sir, to take so early an opportunity of 

redressing the wrongs of my injured client," returned the good 

notary. 

"Yes," retorted Bintrey; "your injured client is all very well 
— but — a word in your ear." ^ 

He whispered to the notary, and walked off. When the notary s 
housekeeper came home, she found him standing at his door motion- 
less, with the key still in his hand, and the door unopened. 



612 NO THOROUGHFARE. 



OBENREIZER S VICTORY. 

The scene shifts again — to the foot of the Simplon, on the 
Swiss side. 

In one of the dreary rooms of the dreary little Inn at Brieg, 
Mr. Bintrey and Maitre Voigt sat together at a professional council 
of two. Mr. Bintrey was searching in his despatch-box. Maitre 
Yoigt was looking towards a closed door, painted brown to imitate 
mahogany, and communicating with an inner room. 

" Isn't it time he was here ? " asked the notary, shifting his 
position, and glancing at a second door at the other end of the 
room, painted yellow to imitate deal. 

"He is here," answered Bintrey, after listening for a moment. 

The yellow door was opened by a waiter, and Obenreizer 
walked in. 

After greeting Maitre Voigt with a cordiality which appeared to 
cause the notary no little embarrassment, Obenreizer bowed with 
grave and distant politeness to Bintrey. "For what reason have 
I been brought from Neuchatel to the foot of the mountain ? " he 
inquired, taking the seat which the English lawyer had indicated 
to him. 

" You shall be quite satisfied on that head before our interview 
is over," returned Bintrey. " For the present, permit me to sug- 
gest proceeding at once to business. There has been a correspond- 
ence, Mr. Obenreizer, between you and your niece. I am here to 
represent your niece." 

" In other words, you, a lawyer, are here to represent an infrac- 
tion of the law." 

" Admirably put ! " said Bintrey. " If all the people I have to 
deal with were only like you, what an easy profession mine would 
be ! I am here to represent an infraction of the law — that is 
your point of view. I am here to make a compromise between 
you and your niece — that is my point of view." 

" There must be two parties to a compromise," rejoined Oben- 
reizer. "I decline, in this case, to be one of them. The law 
gives me authority to control my niece's actions, until she comes 
of age. She is not yet of age ; and I claim my authority." 

At this point Maitre Voigt attempted to speak. Bintrey 
silenced him with a compassionate indulgence of tone and manner, 
as if he was silencing a favourite child. 

"No, my worthy friend, not a word. Don't excite yourself 
unnecessarily; leave it to me." He turned, and addressed himself 
again to Obenreizer. " I can think of nothing comparable to you, 
Mr. Obenreizer, but granite — and even that wears out in course 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 613 

of time. In the interests of peace and quietness — for the sake 
of your own dignity — relax a little. If you will only delegate 
your authority to another person whom I know of, that person 
may be trusted never to lose sight of your niece, night or day ! " 

"You are wasting your time and mine," returned Obenreizer. 
" If my niece is not rendered up to my authority within one 
week from this day, I invoke the law. If you resist the law, I 
take her by force." 

He rose to his feet as he said the last word. Maitre Voigt 
looked round again towards the brown door which led into the 
inner room. 

" Have some pity on the poor girl," pleaded Bintrey. " Remem- 
ber how lately she lost her lover by a dreadful death ! Will noth- 
thing move you 1 " 

"Nothing." 

Bintrey, in his turn, rose to his feet, and looked at Maitre Voigt. 
Maitre Voigt's hand, resting on the table, began to tremble. 
Maitre Voigt's eyes remained fixed, as if by irresistible fascination, 
on the brown door. Obenreizer, suspiciously observing him, looked 
that way too. 

" There is somebody listening in there ! " he exclaimed, with a 
sharp backward glance at Bintrey. 

" There are two people listening," answered Bintrey. 

" Who are they ? " 

"You shall see." 

With that answer, he raised his voice and spoke the next 
words — the two common w^ords which are on everybody's lips, at 
every hour of the day : " Come in ! " 

The brown door opened. Supported on Marguerite's arm — his 
sunburnt colour gone, his right arm bandaged and slung over his 
breast — Vendale stood before the murderer, a man risen from the 
dead. 

In the moment of silence that followed, the singing of a caged 
bird in the courtyard outside was the one sound stirring in the 
room. Maitre Voigt touched Bintrey, and pointed to Obenreizer. 
" Look at him ! " said the notary, in a whisper. 

The shock had paralysed every movement in the villain's body, 
but the movement of the blood. His face was like the face of a 
corpse. The one vestige of colour left in it was a livid purple 
streak which marked the course of the scar, where his victim had 
wounded him on the cheek and neck. Speechless, breathless, 
motionless alike in eye and limb, it seemed as if, at the sight of 
Vendale, the death to which he had doomed Vendale had struck 
him where he stood. 



614 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

'• Somebody ought to speak to him," said Maitre Voigt. 
"Shall I?" 

Even at that moment, Bintrey persisted in silencing the notary, 
and in keeping the lead in the proceedings to himself. Checking 
Maitre Voigt by a gesture, he dismissed Marguerite and Vendale 
in these words: — "The object of your appearance here is an- 
swered," he said. "If you will withdraw for the present, it may 
help Mr. Obenreizer to recover himself." 

It did help him. As the two passed through the door, and 
closed it behind them, he drew a deep breath of relief. He looked 
round him for the chair from which he had risen, and dropped into 

it. i 

" Give him time ! " pleaded Maitre Voigt. 1 

" No," said Bintrey. " I don't know what use he may make of 
it, if I do." He turned once more to Obenreizer, and went on. "I 
owe it to myself," he said — "I don't admit, mind, that I owe it 
to you — to account for my appearance in these proceedings, and 
to state what has been done under my advice, and on my sole 
responsibility. Can you listen to me ? " 

"I can listen to you." 

"Recall the time when you started for Switzerland with Mr. 
Vendale," Bintrey began. " You had not left England four-and- 
twenty hours, before your niece committed an act of imprudence 
which not even your penetration could foresee. She followed her 
promised husband on his journey, without asking anybody's advice 
or permission, and without any better companion to protect her 
than a Cellarmau in Mr. Vendale's employment." 

"Why did she follow me on the journey? and how came the 
Cellarmau to be the person who accompanied her ? " 

"She followed you on the journey," answered Bintrey, "because 
she suspected there had been some serious collision between you 
and Mr. Vendale, which had been kept secret from her; and 
because she rightly believed you to be capable of serving your 
interests, or of satisfying your enmity, at the price of a crime. As 
for the Cellarman, he was one, among the other people in Mr. 
Vendale's establishment, to whom she had applied (the moment 
your back was turned) to know if anything had happened between 
their master and you. The Cellarman alone had something to tell 
her. A senseless superstition, and a common accident which had 
happened to his master, in his master's cellar, had connected Mr. 
Vendale in this man's mind with the idea of danger by murder. 
Your niece surprised him into a confession, which aggravated ten- 
fold the terrors that possessed her. Aroused to a sense of the 
mischief he had done, the man, of his own accord, made the one 



1^70 THOROUGHFARE. 615 

atonement in his power. 'If my master is in danger, Miss,' he 
said, ' it's my duty to follow him, too ; and it's more than my duty 
to take care of you.'' The two set forth together — and, for once, 
a superstition has had its use. It decided your niece on taking 
the journey ; and it led the way to saving a man's life. Do you 
understand me, so far % " 

" I understand you, so far," 

"My first knowledge of the crime that you had committed," 
pursued Bin trey, " came to me in the form of a letter from your 
niece. All you need know is that her love^ and her courage 
recovered the body of your victim, and aided the after-efforts 
which brought him back to life. While he lay helpless at 
Brieg, under her care, she wrote to me to come out to him. 
Before starting, I informed Madame Dor that I knew Miss Oben- 
reizer to be safe, and knew where she was. Madame Dor informed 
me, in return, that a letter had come for your niece, which she 
knew to be in your handwriting. I took possession of it, and 
arranged for the forwarding of any other letters which might follow. 
Arrived at Brieg, I found Mr. Yendale out of danger, and at once 
devoted myself to hastening the day of reckoning with you. 
Defresnier and Company turned you off on suspicion ; acting on 
information privately supplied by me. Having stripped you of 
your false character, the next thing to do was to strip you of your 
authority over your niece. To reach this end, I not only had no 
scruple in digging the pitfall under your feet in the dark — I felt 
a certain professional pleasure in fighting you with your own 
weapons. By my advice, the truth has been carefully concealed 
from you, up to this day. By my advice, the trap into which 
you have walked was set for you (you know why, now, as well as 
I do) in this place. There was but one certain way of shaking 
the devilish self-control which has hitherto made you a formidable 
man. That way has been tried, and (look at me as you may) that 
way has succeeded. The last thing that remains to be done," 
concluded Bintrey, producing two little slips of manuscript from 
his despatch-box, " is to set your niece free. You have attempted 
murder, and you have committed forgery and theft. We have 
the evidence ready against you in both cases. If you are con- 
victed as a felon, you know as well as I do what becomes of your 
authority over your niece. Personally, I should have preferred 
taking that way out of it. But considerations are pressed on me 
which I am not able to resist, and this interview must end, as I 
have told you already, in a compromise. Sign those lines, resign- 
ing all authority over Miss Obenreizer, and pledging yourself never 
to be seen in England or in Switzerland again ; and I will sign an 



616 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

indemnity which secures you against further proceedings on our 
part." 

Obenreizer took the pen, in silence, and signed his niece's 
release. On receiving the indemnity in return, he rose, but made 
no movement to leave the room. He stood looking at Maitre 
Voigt with a strange smile gathering at his lips, and a strange 
light flashing in his filmy eyes. 

" What are you waiting for ? " asked Bintrey. 

Obenreizer pointed to the brown door. " Call them back," he 
answered. "I have something to say in their presence before 
I go." 

"Say it in my presence," retorted Bintrey. "I decline to call 
them back." 

Obenreizer turned to Maitre Voigt. "Do you remember 
telling me that you once had an English client named Vendale ? " 
he asked. 

" Well," answered the notary. " And what of that ? " 

"Maitre Voigt, your clock-lock has betrayed you." 

" What do you mean 1 " 

" I have read the letters and certificates in your client's box. 
I have taken copies of them. I have got the copies here. Is 
there, or is there not, a reason for calling them back 1 " 

For a moment the notary looked to and fro, between Obenreizer 
and Bintrey, in helpless astonishment. Recovering himself, he 
drew his brother-lawyer aside, and hurriedly spoke a few words 
close at his ear. The face of Bintrey — after first faithfully 
reflecting the astonishment on the face of Maitre Voigt — sud- 
denly altered its expression. He sprang, with the activity of a 
young man, to the door of the inner room, entered it, remained 
inside for a minute, and returned followed by Marguerite and 
Vendale. " Now, Mr. Obenreizer," said Bintrey, " the last move 
in the game is yours. Play it." 

"Before I resign my position as that young lady's guardian," 
said Obenreizer, " I have a secret to reveal in which she is inter- 
ested. In making my disclosure, I am not claiming her attention 
for a narrative which she, or any other person present, is expected 
to take on trust. I am possessed of written proofs, copies of 
originals, the authenticity of which Maitre Voigt himself can 
attest. Bear that in mind, and permit me to refer you, at starting, 
to a date long past — the month of February, in the year one 
thousand eight hundred and thirty-six." 

" Mark the date, Mr. Vendale," said Bintrey. 

"My first proof," said Obenreizer, taking a paper from his 
pocket-book. "Copy of a letter, written by an English lady 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 617 

(married) to her sister, a widow. The name of the person writ- 
ing the letter I shall keep suppressed until I have done. The 
aame of the person to whom the letter is written I am willing to 
reveal. It is addressed to ' Mrs. Jane Ann Miller, of Groombridge 
Wells, England.' " 

Vendale started, and opened his lips to speak. Bintrey instantly- 
stopped him, as he had stopped Maitre Voigt. " No," said the 
pertinacious lawyer. " Leave it to me." 

Obenreizer went on : 

" It is needless to trouble you with the first half of the letter," 
he said. "I can give the substance of it in two words. The 
writer's position at tlie time is this. She has been long living in 
Switzerland with her husband — obliged to live there for the sake 
of her husband's health. They are about to move to a new resi- 
dence on the Lake of Neuchatel in a week, and they will be ready 
to receive Mrs. Miller as visitor in a fortnight from that time. 
This said, the writer next enters into an important domestic 
detail. She has been childless for years — she and her husband 
have now no hope of children ; they are lonely ; they want an 
interest in life ; they have decided on adopting a child. Here the 
important part of the letter begins ; and here, therefore, I read it 
to you word for word." 

He folded back the first page of the letter and read as follows : 

"* * * Will you help us, my dear sister, to realise our new 
project ? As English people, we wish to adopt an English child. 
This may be done, I believe, at the Foundling : my husband's 
lawyers in London will tell you how. I leave the choice to you, 
with only these conditions attached to it — that the child is to be 
an infant under a year old, and is to be a boy. Will you pardon 
the trouble I am giving you, for my sake ; and will you bring our 
adopted child to us, with your own children, when you come to 
Neuch§,tel ? 

" I must add a word as to my husband's wishes in this matter. 
He is resolved to spare the child whom we make our own, any 
future mortification and loss of self-respect which might be caused 
by a discovery of his true origin. He will bear my husband's 
name, and he will be brought up in the belief that he is really our 
son. His inheritance of what we have to leave will be secured to 
him — not only according to the laws of England in such cases, 
but according to the laws of Switzerland also ; for we have lived 
so long in this country, that there is a doubt whether we may not 
be considered as ' domiciled ' in Switzerland. The one precaution left 
to take is to prevent any after-discovery at the Foundling. Now, 



G18 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

our name is a very uncommon one ; and if we appear on the Regis- 
ter of the Institution, as the persons adopting the child, there is 
just a chance that something might result from it. Your name, 
my dear, is the name of thousands of other people ; and if you will 
consent to appear on the Register, there need be no fear of any 
discoveries in that quarter. We are moving, by the doctor's 
orders, to a part of Switzerland in which our circumstances are 
quite unknown ; and you, as I understand, are about to engage a 
new nurse for the journey when you come to see us. Under these 
circumstances, the child may appear as my child, brought back to 
me under my sister's care. The only servant we take with us 
from our old home is my own maid, who can be safely trusted. 
As for the lawyers in England and in Switzerland, it is their pro- 
fession to keep secrets — and we may feel quite easy in that direc- 
tion. So there you have our harmless little conspiracy ! Write 
by return of post, my love, and tell me you will join it." 



" Do you still conceal the name of the writer of that letter ? " 
asked Vendale. 

" I keep the name of the writer till the last," answered Oben- 
reizer, '' and I proceed to my second proof — a mere slip of paper, 
this time, as you see. Memorandum given to the Swiss lawyer, 
who drew the documents referred to in the letter I have just read, 
expressed as follows : — ' Adopted from the Foundling Hospital ol" 
England, 3rd March, 1836, a male infant, called, in the Institu- 
tion, Walter Wilding. Person appearing on the register, as adopt- 
ing the child, Mrs. Jane Ann Miller, widow, acting in this matter 
for her married sister, domiciled in Switzerland.' Patience ! " 
resumed Obenreizer, as Vendale, breaking loose from Bintrey, 
started to his feet. "I shall not keep the name concealed much 
longer. Two more little slips of paper, and I have done. Third 
proof! Certificate of Doctor Ganz, still living in practice at 
Neuchatel, dated July, 1838. The doctor certifies (you shall read 
it for yourselves directly), first, that he attended the adopted child in 
its infant maladies ; second, that, three months before the date of 
the certificate, the gentleman adopting the child as his son died ; 
third, that on the date of the certificate, his widow and her maid, 
taking the adopted child with them, left ISTeuchatel on their return 
to England. One more link now added to this, and my chain of 
evidence is complete. The maid remained with her mistress till 
her mistress's death, only a few years since. The maid can swear 
to the identity of the adopted infant, from his childhood to his 
youth — from his youth to his manhood, as he is now. There is 



NO THOROUGHFARE. 619 

her address in England — and there, Mr. Vendale, is the fourth, 
and final proof ! " 

" Why do you address yourself to me ? " said Vendale, as Oben- 
reizer threw the written address on the table. 

Obenreizer turned on him, in a sudden frenzy of triumph. 

^''Because you are the man I If my niece marries you, she 
marries a bastard, brought up by public charity. If my niece 
marries you, she marries an impostor, without name or lineage, 
disguised in the character of a gentleman of rank and family." 

" Bravo ! " cried Bintrey. " Admirably put, Mr. Obenreizer ! 
It only wants one word more to complete it.' She marries — 
thanks entirely to your exertions — a man who inherits a hand- 
some fortune, and a man whose origin will make him prouder than 
ever of his peasant-wife. George Vendale, as brother-executors, 
let us congratulate each other ! Our dear dead friend's last wish 
on earth is accomplished. We have found the lost Walter Wind- 
ing. As Mr. Obenreizer said just now — you are the man ! " 

The words passed by Vendale unheeded. For the moment he 
was conscious of but one sensation ; he heard but one voice. Mar- 
guerite's hand was clasping his. Marguerite's voice was whisper- 
ing to him : "I never loved you, George, as I love you now ! " 

THE CURTAIN FALLS. 

May-Day. There is merry-making in Cripple Comer, the chim- 
neys smoke, the patriarchal dining-hall is hung with garlands, and 
Mrs. Goldstraw, the respected housekeeper, is very busy. For, 
on this bright morning the young master of Cripple Corner is 
married to its young mistress, far away : to wit, in the little town 
of Brieg, in Switzerland, lying at the foot of the Simplon Pass 
where she saved his life. 

The bells ring gaily in the little town of Brieg, and flags are 
stretched across the street, and rifle shots are heard, and sounding 
music from brass instruments. Streamer-decorated casks of wine 
have been rolled out under a gay awning in tlie public way before 
the Inn, and there will be free feasting and revelry. What with 
bells and banners, draperies hanging from windows, explosion of 
gunpowder, and reverberation of brass music, the little town of 
Brieg is all in a flutter, like the hearts of its simple people. 

It was a stormy night last night, and the mountains are covered 
with snow. But the sun is bright to-day, the sweet air is fresh, 
the tin spires of the little town of Brieg are burnished silver, and 
the Alps are ranges of far-off" Avhite cloud in a deep blue sky. 

The primitive people of the little town of Brieg have built a 



620 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

greenwood arch across the street, under which the newly married 
pair shall pass in triumph from the church. It is inscribed, on 
that side, " Honour and Love to Marguerite Vendale ! " 
for the people are proud of her to enthusiasm. This greeting of 
the bride under her new name is affectionately meant as a surprise, 
and therefore the arrangement has been made that she, unconscious 
why, shall be taken to the church by a tortuous back way. A 
scheme not difficult to carry into execution in the crooked little 
town of Brieg. 

So, all things are in readiness, and they are to go and come on 
foot. Assembled in the Inn's best chamber, festively adorned, are 
the bride and bridegroom, the Neuchatel notary, the London 
lawyer, Madame Dor, and a certain large mysterious Englishman, 
popularly known as Monsieur Zhod-Ladelle. And behold Madame 
Dor, arrayed in a spotless pair of gloves of her own, with no hand 
in the air, but both hands clasped round the neck of the bride ; 
to embrace whom Madame Dor has turned her broad back on the 
company, consistent to the last. 

"Forgive me, my beautiful," pleads Madame Dor, "for that 
I ever was his she-cat ! " 

"She-cat, Madame Dor?" 

"Engaged to sit watching my so charming mouse," are the 
explanatory words of Madame Dor, delivered with a penitential 
sob. 

" Why, you were our best friend ! George, dearest, tell 
Madame Dor. Was she not our best friend?" 

"Undoubtedly, darling. What should we have done without 
her?" 

"You are both so generous," cries Madame Dor, accepting 
consolation, and immediately relapsing. " But I commenced as a 
she-cat." 

"Ah ! But like the cat in the fairy-story, good Madame Dor," 
says Vendale, saluting her cheek, "you were a true woman. And, 
being a true woman, the sympathy of your heart was with true 
love." 

" I don't wish to deprive Madame Dor of her share in the 
embraces that are going on," Mr. Bintrey puts in, watch in hand, 
" and I don't presume to offer any objection to your having got 
yourselves mixed together, in the corner there, like the three 
Graces. I merely remark that I think it's time we were moving. 
What are your sentiments on that subject, Mr. Ladle ? " 

"Clear, sir," replies Joey, with a gracious grin. "I'm clearer 
altogether, sir, for having lived so many weeks upon the surface. 
I never was half so long upon the surface afore, and its done me a 



NO THOROUGHFAKE. 621 

power of good. At Cripple Corner, I was too much below it. 
Atop of the Simpleton, I was a deal too high above it. I've 
found the medium here, sir. And if ever I take it in convivial, 
in all the rest of my days, I mean to do it this day, to the toast 
of 'Bless 'em both.'" 

"I, too !" says Bintrey. "And now. Monsieur Voigt, let you 
and me be two men of Marseilles, and allons, marchons, arm-in- 
arm ! " 

They go down to the door, where others are waiting for them, 
and they go quietly to the church, and the happy marriage takes 
place. While the ceremony is yet in progress, the notary is 
called out. When it is finished, he has returned, is standing 
behind Vendale, and touches him on the shoulder. 

" Go to the side door, one moment. Monsieur Vendale. Alone. 
Leave Madame to me." 

At the side door of the church, are the same two men from the 
Hospice. They are snow-stained and travel-worn. They wish 
him joy, and then each lays his broad hand upon Vendale's breast, 
and one says in a low voice, while the other steadfastly regards 
him : 

"It is here, monsieur. Your litter. The very same." 

" My litter is here ? Why 1 " 

" Hush ! For the sake of Madame. Your companion of that 
day " 

"What of him?" 

The man looks at his comrade, and his comrade takes him up. 
Each keeps his hand laid earnestly on Vendale's breast. 

"He had been living at the first Refuge, monsieur, for some 
daytj. The weather was now good, now bad." 

"Yes?" 

"He arrived at our Hospice the day before yesterday, and, 
having refreshed himself with sleep on the floor before the fire, 
wrapped in his cloak, was resolute to go on, before dark, to the 
next Hospice. He had a great fear of that part of the way, and 
thought it would be worse to-morrow." 

"Yes?" 

"He went on alone. He had passed the gallery, when an 
avalanche — like that which fell behind you near the Bridge of the 
Ganther " 

" Killed him ? " 

" We dug him out, suff'ocated and broken all to pieces ! But, 
monsieur, as to Madame. We have brought him here on the 
litter, to be buried. We must ascend the street outside. Madame 
must not see. It would be an accursed thing to bring the litter 



622 NO THOROUGHFARE. 

through the arch across the street, until Madame has passed 
through. As you descend, we who accompany the litter will set 
it down on the stones of the street the second to the right, and 
will stand before it. But do not let Madame turn her head 
towards the street the second to the right. There is no time to 
lose. Madame will be alarmed by your absence. Adieu ! " 

Vendale returns to his bride, and draws her hand through his 
unmaimed arm. A pretty procession awaits them at the main 
door of the church. They take their station in it, and descend 
the street amidst the ringing of the bells, the firing of the guns, 
the waving of the flags, the playing of the music, the shouts, the 
smiles, and tears, of the excited town. Heads are uncovered as 
she passes, hands are kissed to her, all the people bless her, 
" Heaven's benediction on the dear girl ! See where she goes in 
her youth and beauty ; she who so nobly saved his life ! " 

Near the corner of the street the second to the right, he speaks 
to her, and calls her attention to the windows on the opposite 
side. The corner well passed, he says : "Do not look round, my 
darling, for a reason that I have," and turns his head. Then, 
looking back along the street, he sees the litter and its bearers 
passing up alone under the arch, as he and she and their marriage 
train go down towards the shining valley. 



THE EXD. 



3i).77-4<. 



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Treatment Date: March 2009 

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